Old Roads: Fearful Symmetries
by tjadis
Summary: Three years after the Blight is broken, a few of the companions travel together one last time. All of them have changed, but the past is still out there...and it is about to catch up with them. Multiple perspectives. Part 2 of "Old Roads".
1. What Immortal Hand Or Eye

_Author's Note: This is a followup to my story "Waking Hours". It's probably going to be a bit longer total than that story was. Plot and ending spoilers, and a fair amount of stuff that's either original or I've done some creative interpretation of in-game conversations and the sourcebook with._

_Bioware are a collection of evil geniuses who own the characters and the world._

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**One: What Immortal Hand Or Eye**

_Alistair:_

The babe was small, to be sure, but he was healthy and perfect, ten fingers, ten toes, and no scent of darkspawn taint about him. And right now, Alistair was walking the halls of the Palace with him, because every time he stopped for a moment his son woke up and started fussing. Rima was exhausted, and he'd taken little Duncan so that she could sleep.

There were nurses, of course, but Alistair was a new father, and he was in love with his tiny son in a way he'd only loved a few things in his life. He was leaving for Waking Sea in a few weeks, and he wanted to spend as much time as he could with the child before he left.

And it was such a _relief_ that Duncan was healthy, and a boy, and even though he'd come a few weeks early it didn't seem to have hurt him. Alistair shifted the baby in his arms and tucked the blanket around him a bit better.

"And one of these days, I'll teach you how to use a sword," he said. The baby stirred and turned his face into Alistair's chest. "Well, maybe after you've learned how to walk."

He kept walking, his son a warm weight in his arms. And as often happened on these nights when he was awake long past when anyone else was, his thoughts turned to the only other person he'd ever taught to use a sword.

*****

"Alistair. I'm _serious_."

He furrowed his brow, taken aback by her determination. "But you're a mage. Mages don't _use_ swords."

They were camped at the edge of the Dalish camp. The smell of halla drifted on the breeze from the enclosure that protected the deer-like creatures, clean animal sweat with a tinge of grass and musk. Kathil was standing in front of him, one hand on her hip. "Fine. I'll go ask Sten to teach me, then. Not that he thinks I should be fighting, either, but I'd bet he'd give me the basics. I always end up in the middle of the fight anyway, for one reason or another."

He'd known that the phylactery that they'd found in the ruins was going to be trouble. Finding phylacteries was _always_ trouble. Instead of them having to put down a revenant, however, Kathil's face had taken a look of concentration when she'd touched it, almost as if she were communicating with _something_ inside of the vial of black blood.

Then she'd put the phylactery on the altar and the torchlight had dimmed so briefly he thought he'd imagined it, and she bent to pick up a package from the base of the altar.

And now she was standing in front of him, asking him to teach her how to use a sword.

_What in the name of Andraste's frilly underthings have I gotten myself into?_

He felt eyes on him—Morrigan, watching from the shadows. He ignored her. He looked at his fellow Warden and sighed. "All right, all right. First thing you need to know—"

"Pointy end goes into the other person?" she suggested, and gave him a flash of a smile that nearly made him forget himself for a moment.

She took to the sword with a singular fervor. And when she hit, she hit _hard_. Weeks later, she put on the armor she'd found in the ruined temple, and it was with some surprise that Alistair realized that, if anything, she looked even more at home in the armor than in her robes.

And of course, right after that, he'd _completely_ lost his head and _kissed_ her—

He'd always wondered, after the war was said and done, what her life would have been like if she hadn't been a mage. Would she have become a soldier anyway? Been sworn to the Grey Wardens earlier?

Been lost at Ostagar with all the rest?

Strange, how the thing that made it possible for them to know one another was the thing that, in the end, had forced them apart.

*****

"Your Majesty, smoke ahead."

"I can see that," Alistair said dryly. "I'm not blind _quite_ yet. Looks like a campfire."

They'd been traveling for two weeks now, and he had to admit that, which it was much more of a _process_ to be traveling as the King, it was also a lot more comfortable. He almost missed the little tent he'd called home while they were traveling during the Blight, but he did _not_ miss having a bedroll so thin that every tiny rock seemed to dig into his spine through it.

(But there were other things he did miss, Wynne _tch_ing at him and complaining about his socks, Lorn's constant barking at things as threatening as bunnies and branches moving in the breeze, Sten's rare smiles, Shale calling him "it", even Morrigan's arch little comments about, well, _everything_. And of course the other Grey Warden. Of course.)

"Why don't you go and—" He stopped, and cocked his head. "Never mind. I believe I know who that is." That barking was entirely too familiar. He dismounted from his horse and started walking, the guard trailing in his wake.

"Ah, sir—your majesty—where are you _going_?"

"I'm going to go see the Grey Warden, Emris," he said. "You can stay here for the moment, I'll be back."

"But—"

"Stay here, Emris. Between her and her warhound, anything that might think of being dangerous has packed up and moved away already. Besides. Do I really look all that helpless?"

Emris faltered and fell behind, and a bit of bellowing later Alistair was free of them and striding towards the rising smoke. Nerves were twisting up his stomach, and if he stopped to think his head was perhaps going to explode a little, so he didn't. He just kept walking.

He passed what looked to be days-old darkspawn remains, crumbling bones and shreds of flesh. Well, there _had_ been darkspawn in the area. No more.

The first one he saw, of course, was Lorn, because Lorn bounded out of the underbrush and reared up to put his massive paws on Alistair's shoulders—"Mind the _pauldrons_, pup!"—and gave Alistair's face a swipe with a tongue that felt for all the world like a washing-cloth. A _very wet_ washing-cloth.

_Whuff!_

"Glad to see you too, Lorn," he said as he tried to wipe his face with one hand and fend off the Mabari's tongue with the other. "No, I've had a bath just recently, I don't need another one. Where's Kathil?"

The warhound's paws thumped to the ground, his stubby tail wagging wildly, and bounded towards where Alistair could see the smoke rising from the fire. He followed.

A few hundred yards away, he came out from the forest into a clearing, catching his breath—

And she was there, bending to pet Lorn, and when she looked at him her face was transformed by a smile into one of the most beautiful things he'd ever seen. He barely had time to think _she looks happy_ before she'd hurled herself towards him and caught him around his neck. He picked her up, laughing. She was out of armor, which was good because two people in armor hugging was a ticklish proposition. It was bad enough with only one, really, but they'd gotten used to it, traveling together.

"You're _late_," she said into his ear.

"Takes a little longer to cover ground than it used to," he said, and carefully set her back down on the ground. "Besides, I didn't know where exactly we were going to find you. We've been traveling a slowly to make sure not to miss you."

"You did not miss us, and neither did the darkspawn," said a familiar voice. "Grey Wardens. Tch. One would think the darkspawn would learn, but traveling with one of you is much like painting a large target on oneself."

"You should be used to it by now, Zevran," he told the elf, who had come up to them while he was busy setting Kathil back on her feet.

"One advantage of the Circle Tower, Alistair. Darkspawn are _terrible_ swimmers." Zevran had the ghost of a smile on his face.

Alistair chuckled, and began to relax. So far, this was going much better than the last time he had seen either of them. "Well, I'm here now. Let's get you two packed up and—" He stopped.

He'd missed something when he walked into the camp.

It was a _small_ camp.

One tent.

There had to be some reasonable explanation for that. Perhaps the darkspawn had made off with one of the tents? That must be it.

But Kathil was beginning to flush, and her ears were beginning to turn red, and he suddenly felt very foolish.

At least Zevran was having enough grace not to smirk.

"Er. Get you packed up. Waking Sea is waiting, after all," he said into the silence. "I'll, ah…"

"Go back to your guards, Alistair," Kathil said, and her voice was remarkably steady given the fact that she was looking everywhere but at him or Zevran. "We've packed camp before. We'll be there in a little while."

He was a king, and kings did _not_ scurry back to their men like their tails were lit on fire.

It surely felt that way, though.

*****

_Kathil:_

"That…could have gone better. Maker's _Breath_, why did I not hear him _coming_?" She was rolling up blankets with furious hands, still blushing.

"He was going to learn the truth soon, little bird," Zevran said. "You were going to pretend that nothing has changed? All the way to Waking Sea?" He shoved dirt over their fire with one booted foot.

She shook her head. "No, I was going to tell him…tonight, I thought."

"And now there is no need. He knows, we know, everyone knows and there will be no awkwardness tonight. Ah, the look on his _face_."

She growled. "I _hate_ you."

"No, you do not." He finished putting the fire out and came to her, holding out one hand. She looked at him and relented, taking his hand and letting him pull her to her feet and into the circle of his arms. "You are perhaps a little angry and a little embarrassed, my Warden. And perhaps you are not as recovered from what was between you and Alistair as you occasionally claim, yes?"

She put her head down, her nose against the scarred golden skin of his neck. "I suppose not. I just wanted a little time, was all." She breathed in, and the smell of him calmed her, smoke from the fire, steel, leather, and just a hint of stone. Lorn thought he smelled of stone, anyway, from what she could tell, and she chose to believe the warhound was authoritative on the subject of what things and people smelled like.

Said warhound whuffed and shoved his nose against Kathil's hip. Alistair was here, and they were obviously about to travel again, and could they get a _move_ on, please? "Yes, yes, Lorn, one moment." She raised her head and kissed Zevran, just to remind herself that it had been three years, they all had changed, and they all had moved on. He kissed her back, sweetly teasing, withholding what she wanted from him until he gave in to her in a rush, and _that_ was pleasant enough that she forgot for a moment what had just happened, heat tingling down to her toes.

When they broke the kiss, Kathil took a deep breath. "We should go before Alistair sends someone to check on us."

He didn't let go of her. "Likely." Then he was looking at her for a moment, searching her face for—what?—and then released her. "Lead on, my Grey Warden."

It took them a few minutes to finish packing, Kathil spent a few more putting on her armor, and then they were shouldering their packs and walking in the direction that Alistair had come from.

It was going to be a very long trip.

*****

The royal guard built one central fire and three smaller fires when they finally stopped walking that night. Alistair's tent was pitched in the center, by the big fire. He was sitting out in front of it when Kathil approached, working the edge of his blade with a sharpening steel.

She was alone, having entrusted Lorn with keeping an eye on Zevran. There was an empty place on the rock next to him, and when she paused he waved her towards it. Then he glanced at the guards nearest him. "A little privacy to talk to the Grey Warden. Please." It was not a request. The guards stepped away.

"Polishing the old blade, eh?" she said quietly, trying to smile. Her stomach was flipping over on itself. She sat down next to him, close enough to touch him if she reached out, far enough away (oh thank goodness) that she could not feel the heat radiating off of him.

"Helps relieve the tension." The steel went _shhhhhnick_ against the blade, the starmetal iridescing dully in the firelight.

Kathil was at a loss. When she'd last seen him, she'd had her mask of calm to help her get through the encounter, a deadly silence bolstered by despair and not really caring if she saw the next sunrise. But now she cared, she cared very _much_, and the real problem was that she honestly didn't quite know what she wanted from him.

What she really wanted, she thought, was her friend back. The very funny friend who had joked in the face of doom and lived to tell the tale, the sweet friend whose voice had _cracked_ when she'd teased him.

She'd gone and made that friend into a king, so maybe it served her right to lose him. She took a deep breath. "I hear congratulations are in order. You named him after Duncan?"

"Ah. Yes." Alistair was still not looking at her.

"Look, Alistair." She swallowed. "Is this the part where we travel in awkward silence for a few days and then have a shouting match where neither of us is admitting what we're actually fighting about? Because if so, I think I'll take my awkward silence back over to my own tent, thanks."

He looked at her. Blinked.

And then, Maker be praised, he laughed. It was a weak laugh, but a laugh it was.

"Skewered on my own sword, Kathil. You look like you're doing well. Life as a Circle mage seems to agree with you."

Abruptly, she was desperate to get the _really_ awkward part of this conversation over with. "And Zevran."

"Zevran," he echoed. "Kathil…I never thought…_why_?" He was better at controlling the play of emotions over his face than he used to be, but she could still see everything he wanted to ask but knew better. "Why him?"

And that was a question with a very long and complicated answer that started with _because he was there when I needed him_ and ended with _because I love him, you idiot_. "I honestly don't think you want to hear it," she said.

"And if I do?"

She considered him, and sighed. "Because I don't have to be anyone other than who I am with him, Alistair. Many other reasons, but that's one of the big ones."

There was a question on his face that she could see he didn't know how to ask without causing offense. "And…it's a _thing_? I mean, he's been at the Tower for months, but it's _Zevran_, doesn't he, um…"

She raised an eyebrow. "Bed anything with a pulse?"

Alistair looked like he would much rather be elsewhere, but he straightened his shoulders and forged on. "Well, if you put it that way—"

"If you really have to know, we have an agreement," she told him. "Yes, it's a _thing_, as you so eloquently put it. Started a few weeks after he showed up at the Tower with a bunch of Antivan Crows on his heels."

"Well, if it matters—not that it matters—you look happy." He looked down at the sword in his hands for a moment as if he didn't quite recognize it. "I was just expecting…"

"That I'd come skipping back to your bed the moment you beckoned?" _Oh, damnation_, she thought as she closed her mouth on the _rest_ of that statement, and Alistair was looking more than vaguely offended and the worst thing was that she didn't actually mean what she said, they were both trying so hard to be adults and there was no way to take back what had just come out of her mouth. "Andraste's little ankles. I'm sorry, Alistair." He still had the most delicious puppy-eyed look when he was trying to decide whether to be angry or hurt or both at once and _stop that right now Kathil do you not remember what he __**did**__ to you?_

There was a reason she'd fled Denerim in the first place. She remembered, now.

Dignity.

_Right._

"We should talk. Later. I, um—" No, dignity was not going to be an option. She rose abruptly and stepped away, towards the other side of the fire, and when she got to her own tent she sank down on her bedroll and just _shook_.

Lorn attempted to crawl into her lap, shoving his huge head under her chin and making soft _whff whff whff_ sounds against her chest. "I'll be all right, puppy," she said and leaned into him. "I'm just very silly sometimes. What did you do with Zevran?"

"I am here," she heard him say as the tent flap opened. "I had thought I might teach some of the guard how to play Seven Dragons while you were talking with Alistair, but your discussion was…quite a bit shorter than I thought it might be."

Kathil frowned and craned her neck around so she could see him, as much as she could in the dim. "It went a bit to sixes and sevens. You don't have to stay with me if you wanted to go play cards."

"Ah, I believe I will stay here. I will have time to teach the game later, and the company here is _far_ better." He sank down next to her, and leaned over to kiss her ear. "Even if half of it does smell like it might need a bath sometime soon."

She laughed and kissed him and shifted so she could put an arm around him, feeling a little bit better about the world.


	2. What Distant Deeps Or Skies

**Two: ****What Distant Deeps Or Skies**

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_Alistair:_

The sound of steel ringing against steel drew him out of the camp. They were nearing where the North Road met with the Imperial Highway. After a couple of days on the Imperial, they would take a road everyone called the Lost River towards Seahold, one of the last castles before Orlais. Alistair had never been there. It was remote, on the other side of a mountain range from the entrance to Orzammar, and it was fiercely proud and independent.

He'd seen Kathil and Zevran heading off with their weapons for a bit of exercise. He'd assumed that the "exercise" was a euphemism, but it sounded as if he might have been mistaken. Curiosity nagged at him, and so he was ducking under low branches towards the sound of swords.

He came around a large tree and spied his quarry. He stopped, then leaned against the tree to watch.

If pressed to admit that he liked anything about Zevran, how he fought would probably be the first thing Alistair mentioned. The elf was grace itself, wielding two swords and even doing a little bit of tumbling in combat. And Kathil, against him…

He could see still where he'd had an influence on her fighting. How she placed her feet, the way she braced her shoulders when she blocked a blow, that was all him. She wielded a single sword—not the same sword she had used to kill the archdemon, but a plain steel longsword. Though he'd tried to convince her that she needed a shield, she'd always refused to learn. _Too many things in my hands,_ she'd said. _I have to be able to free my hands at a moment's notice, for spellcasting._

The two of them came together, parted, each of them absolutely focused on the other. It looked almost like an elaborate dance, and it probably was, a bit—sparring with someone who you knew well was often like that. Kathil ducked under Zevran's long blade and came up close to him, only to have her sword turned aside by his off-hand blade.

The elf was shirtless, and Kathil wore a shirt usually meant for being the first layer between flesh and armor. It was sleeveless and cut short, and revealed quite a bit of skin. And scar.

_Sweet Andraste. What __**happened**__ to the two of them?_

Scar covered Kathil's left shoulder, spreading out over her chest and down to her side, deep furrows carved by claws with burn spreading outward from those furrows. The scar was knotted and raised, signs that the healing of it had been done less magically than naturally. There were other scars, as well, but his eyes kept on coming back to that shoulder. The deep furrow that marred the side of her face and twisted the corner of her mouth was almost mild, compared to this.

And the elf was not much better. It looked like someone had carved designs into his torso, front and back, like some cruel ornamentation. Alistair had seen Zevran without his shirt often enough—he tended to come to breakfast without anything but pants on—and those markings had not been there, before the Archdemon.

_I have walked old roads, and learned old magic._ Kathil's words from the first time he'd seen her after she'd left Denerim came back to him.

He would have to ask her later. For now, he watched.

The two of them clashed and parted, circling each other. Zevran came in fast towards her, and Kathil stepped aside. Too slow—the elf's sword was within an inch of her flesh and Alistair reminded herself _she knows what she's doing, these two have sparred before—_

Kathil muttered a word and vanished.

_What fell magic is __**that**__?_

Zevran stopped, nearly dropping to one knee as he got his center of balance beneath of him, using his legs to power a change in direction. And when Kathil reappeared in a place that had a moment before been behind him, he was there and facing her. He swept an arm forward and caught her on the midsection, eliciting an _oof_ from her, and then placed his short sword against her throat.

"You become predictable, my Grey Warden," Zevran said, and there was a smug smile on his lips. "Plus, I believe it might be cheating. Did we not agree, no magic?"

"Bah. That won me, what, eight bouts? Obviously, I'm slipping." She smiled at him, and the elf let her go. "Very few people I fight will have the chance to see that more than once. And I said no _offensive_ magic, Zev. Again? Ah—" Kathil turned sharply towards Alistair.

Alistair realized that he'd been spotted. "Don't stop on my account," he said, waving at them. "I was enjoying the show." He chuckled, a bit weakly, and his sense of disquiet only grew when he saw that Kathil was just standing there, staring at him, an unreadable expression on her face. "Er. I suppose I should go."

But the mage blew out an annoyed breath. "No, it's fine, there's nothing to see that you haven't already." She walked to a nearby stump and grabbed her shirt, and then pulled it on. "Was there something you wanted, _my liege_?"

He ignored the blades in her tone. "What happened to you?" he asked. "You did _not_ have those scars after the Archdemon. Neither of you did."

"It's a long story," she told him. "I encountered something that was just about as tough as I was. I thought I'd killed it. Learned the hard way that it was smart enough to play dead. I was found by some Chasind a couple of days later. I was lucky not to lose the arm or the use of the shoulder. And Zev, here—" she gestured at the elf, and the smile that touched her lips was fond—"got to play bait in a trap set by a Crow master assassin…thing. Its weapons were made of something that caused the wounds to resist healing. Lorn brought it down—you might have seen his scars, too."

The kaddis Lorn wore hid much in light and shadow, but Alistair remembered, a little, seeing deep lines on the warhound that he didn't remember. Warhounds were _always_ scarred, though, and it hadn't occurred to him to wonder.

But now he focused on Kathil's earlier words. "What was it you encountered that could get _you_ so badly?"

She made a face. "I call them nightmares. They're…mmm…sort of like demons. Denizens of old places in the Fade. Only _they_ don't need mortal vessels to push through the veil, especially on the old roads and in places where magic has been used a lot. They can straddle the Veil, even away from the old roads. It takes an arcane warrior to fight them."

"I've never heard of them," he said, a suspicion growing in him.

"Most people haven't." Kathil looked away from him. "They're lucky."

He'd traveled with this woman for over a year, had been involved with her for about half that time, and he still knew her. She didn't want to tell him something that he probably ought to know about. "Out with it, Kathil."

She breathed in. "I—it does not reflect well upon me. But. I mentioned a while back that I'd been walking old roads. If you're going to understand this, Alistair, you have to understand that I was not precisely in my right mind when I left Denerim. The Archdemon, Wynne, _us_…everyone leaving me. It was hard to bear. I remembered some research I'd done when I was apprenticed, on the old roads of the Fade. Things live there, things even more ancient than the old gods. I was strong enough in my magic to seek out those old roads, as only the magisters of the Imperium had before. I left looking for Morrigan, but I found so much more."

Alistair narrowed his eyes. "You were looking for your own death."

"That, too." She smiled wanly, and the scar at the corner of her mouth deepened. "My first contact with the old roads came only a season after I started looking for them. The first time I found one, I also found a nightmare. I killed it, but only with the help of the ancient being that lived at the crossroads I'd found myself at. It asked a reward for its help. I gave it what it desired. A drop of mage blood. In return, since I had not tried to get out of paying for its help, it gave me a gift. Knowledge. How to deal with the old roads. How to make bargains with what lives there. And how to fight the things which follow me back. About a year later, I ran into the nightmare that gave me the scar on my shoulder."

He was staring at her, and couldn't quite stop. "That doesn't sound like something the Circle would approve of."

Kathil shifted as if will alone were keeping her in place. "No. They wouldn't. But they're not going to find out. If I stay off the old roads, the attacks don't come more than once a season, when the nightmares find and follow my trail."

While Kathil was talking, Zevran had moved. He now stood at her shoulder, and though his weapons were sheathed, one of his hands was creeping towards the hilt of his longsword. Alistair realized that both of his hands had curled into fists. "This—" he said, then stopped and shook his head. "I have to think about this."

The mage's flinch as the meaning of his words hit her made his stomach twist. "Fine," she said. "But if you decide to tell the Chantry about it, would you do me the favor of warning me first? I am going to want to be very far away. Maybe Rivain. I've heard it's warm there."

"The least I can do for you," he said, and then turned and walked away.

*****

_Zevran:_

He had expected many things from this trip. Very few of them were coming to pass.

He'd had the most exquisite pleasure of seeing Alistair's face when he'd realized what had come to pass between himself and his Grey Warden, yes. But he had also expected Kathil and the King to…reconcile, as it were, very quickly indeed. She had been so very looking forward to this trip, even though she had not said as much.

Instead, first they had both been very _polite_ at one another. And then, Alistair had caught them sparring, and wrung a confession out of Kathil with little more than a bit of well-wielded guilt.

It made his hands itch, because he misliked it when he made mistakes, especially when anticipating the behavior of those he should know very well. He had not survived this long by ignoring when he was mistaken.

And to bring into it the fact that he had not liked at all the look in their old companion's eyes when he'd seen the scars—as if those scars had any chance at all of diminishing his Grey Warden's beauty. As if she were somehow _marred_. If he ever said anything to her about it, he would…

And that was, as it were, a slight problem.

Killing Alistair was, unfortunately, right out. Not only would it upset the Fereldan government yet again, but Kathil would never forgive him. And even if he took pains to hide his involvement, she would know. She always did.

Politics. Bah.

He would guard her back, and do what he could to keep Alistair from breaking her heart yet again.

*****

_Kathil:_

_Shesen lifted her high in the air and then set her down again. "Again, sweet pea? Remember, you hide, and I come looking for you—"_

"_Then AMBUSH!" she declared and threw her arms around her nurse's knees. "GOT you!" _

"_Your father is going to be the death of me," Shesen said, and rumpled Kathil's short-cropped hair. "First he lets you cut your own hair, and now this. If your lady mother were alive, she would give him such a lecture! Ah, well, all right, we'll play ambush. I'll count to fifty and you go hide."_

_Kathil giggled and ran off into the darkness of the hold's basement. "One…two…three…" There was a place she'd found when she'd last managed to slip free of the constant watchful guard over her and come down here by herself. It was a bunch of rotting boards over the entrance to a tunnel that led away into the darkness of stone. It would make an excellent hiding place for an ambush. _

_As she found the spot and wriggled through the gap between two boards, she repeated to herself Father's rules of ambush, as much as she remembered them. "Use the dark. Hide good. Don't hit anyone nice. And 'scape route."_

_The walls of the tunnel were a little damp and it smelled weird, sharp and musty. Kathil huddled down in the middle, watching through the gap in the boards. "Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven…"_

_Just about then, she realized that she wasn't alone in the tunnel._

_Her only warning was a scratching sound directly behind her, and then a warm, furry weight smashed into her from behind, biting and clawing and knocking her into the boards. Blind in the darkness, she kicked at the thing attacking her, but it only sank what felt like teeth into her leg._

_Only then did she scream._

_She was trapped between the boards and the attacking thing, and in her panic she couldn't find the gap she had wiggled in through. "NO!" she shrieked, and the tunnel suddenly smelled like a thunderstorm and her short hair was standing on end and there was a flash brighter than anything in the world and a loud popping and crackling noise nearly deafened her._

_Then Shesen was pulling away the boards from the tunnel's entrance, and Kathil tumbled out into her arms. "Oh sweet Andraste preserve us!" her nurse said as she scooped Kathil up. "What was…oh."_

_The lantern she carried and had set hastily down illuminated the scene in the narrow tunnel. A rat the size of a child lay dead, covered all over with scorch marks, blood flowing thick and dull from its mouth._

_All Kathil knew right then was the way Shesen's arms tightened around her and the grieving note in her voice. "Oh, sweet pea. Oh, my darling girl."_

_Shesen carried her up the stairs, washed out and bandaged the bites on her leg, and then told Kathil to stay in bed for a bit._

_That night, the men in armor came._

She was sitting up, breathing hard, and next to her Zevran was stirring. Lorn stuck his head into the tent and gave a quizzical whine. "Are you all right, my lo—my Warden?" Zev asked, blinking at her as he sat up.

"Just a dream," she said. "It's all right, Lorn, I'm fine." Lorn whuffed at her doubtfully and climbed inside the tent to lie down at Kathil's side. "You don't have to, Lorn."

Lorn looked up at her and cocked an ear at her, then laid his head down and, apparently, went right to sleep. Zevran asked, "Darkspawn again? We have not encountered such for a few days. Perhaps they draw near."

"No. Not darkspawn." She laydown again, and Zevran followed her suit. She wiggled a bit so she could put her head on his shoulder. There was a comfort in being pressed between Zevran and Lorn, a pair of warm, protective bodies. "It might have been a memory. I _think_ it was the incident that revealed my power. Or perhaps just a dream about being a child. "

"Perhaps being close to Seahold has triggered some memories, yes?" he said. She could feel his voice resonate in his chest. "We are only, what, three days away?"

"Maybe. But I thought that what the Circle does to its apprentices was irreversible." She drew in a long breath, then let it out. "Go to sleep, Zev. We can talk about it in the morning."

And they did, though not before a thought floated into Kathil's sleep-fuzzed brain. _If the destruction of the memories isn't irreversible—what about the rest of what they do to us?_

*****

_Cullen:_

For a death sentence, being a Grey Warden wasn't actually half bad.

Cullen had been raised by the Chantry, and had never traveled farther than Redcliffe Village. It had been a certain shock to enter Amaranthine, with its crowds of people. But there had been familiar things, as well—the discipline of the militant order he'd been sent to join, the rhythm of a life spent half training and half learning about the history of the Grey Wardens and their place in the world. The Grey Wardens in Denerim had come all the way from the Weisshaupt to rebuild their Ferelden counterparts, and he liked and respected his new commanders.

He missed being a Templar, and missed his brethren who had shared his every waking breath since he had been accepted as a Templar candidate. But he was still doing needed work, even if there _were_ a few awkward things that came with having been cloistered his entire life—

(He remembered his first and only trip to one of the dockside brothels. He'd only been half-aware that was where Mishkal and Pater were going when they asked him to join, and once they had gotten there all he'd wanted was to sink down into his boots and hope nobody noticed him. He'd ended up fleeing back to the barracks before half of an hour had passed.)

He was starting to get used to it. The Joining had been painful, but he had the discipline to get through it. He had been rather surprised to survive the experience. Montclair, the Warden-General, had even commented on it, right afterward. Nobody had asked what he had done to get kicked out of the Chantry. He assumed Ser Greagoir had told them.

And three weeks after he'd passed the Joining, he found himself on the road with Montclair and ten other Grey Wardens, heading east. He was the only native Ferelden in the bunch, and he still didn't quite know why they were traveling, or what they expected to find when they reached Seahold. "The King travels to Seahold," Montclair had said, in his quiet way of his. "We much reach it before he does. Your training as a Templar should stand us in good stead, while we're there."

So it had to do with a mage, he guessed. And from the dark looks Montclair occasionally shared with his commanders, whatever it was had to be important. They had traveled quickly, once abandoning the road for twenty miles of mountainous countryside in the name of avoiding some confrontation. They stopped in Highever to trade their exhausted horses for fresh ones, and kept pressing forward.

And now Seahold was in sight, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He'd never quite appreciated how good it was to stand _still_, to be a silent watcher whose rear end wasn't tender from days spent in the saddle. And Seahold was quite the sight. It was built on a cliff, seemingly carved from the stone of the land itself, occupying the highest point among a series of deep valleys filled with roaring rivers that tumbled down to the Waking Sea.

Amaranthine was located on the ocean, but the Waking Sea was a different creature entirely. Winds whipped in from the west, through the relatively narrow channel that the Sea created, and weather came in intensified by it. Too, there were storms that came from the north, howling gales that dropped rain on the coastline before, tamed by the mountain range, they went on to water Ferelden's great valleys.

They wound up the road leading to the outer keep. As they did, they passed a few travelers walking up the road, cloaked against the mist. As they passed by one group, a woman looked up at them.

She was red-haired, and in the shadow of her hood her eyes were bright blue. She had a considering look on her face, and she looked somehow familiar. As if he ought to know her from somewhere.

But they passed by and into the bailey, and in the ensuing flurry of work he forgot all about her. The King would be here three days from now, castle scuttlebutt went. They had to make ready.

*****

_Leiliana:_

Seahold. A hold, by the sea. _Would it kill the Fereldens to allow a little poetry to enter their souls?_ For instance, the Circle Tower's other name was Kinhold. They might as well have called it "My Brother-In-Law's House" and have been done with it.

Back in Ferelden, and she was remembering some things she'd forgotten about the place. How it smelled, for instance. "Wet dog" was actually putting it kindly. And here, in one of the wilder parts of the country, where ancient forests drank the constant mist and rain and the trees grew large out of all proportion, it was also very, very muddy.

But Seahold held a little town within its walls, and welcomed visitors. She could probably turn a tune and a tale into a warm place to sleep and what passed for a good meal, both of which had been lacking on the road from Orlais. She had promised Kathil she would return, and now that her business in Orlais was settled, it was time to do so, perhaps for a year or two. Denerim was still weeks away, but she might be able to find a caravan going that way now that she was through the truly wild mountains that stood between her home country and the one she had helped save.

She stepped off the road as a group of armed men rode past on horses. Grey Wardens, from the shield on the one in front. Nobody else dared carry a shield emblazoned with griffons, especially not now. One of the ones in back looked over at her as he passed, and she felt a shock of recognition.

She never forgot a face. Even if the last time she had seen that face had been in the Circle Tower, almost four years ago now. Even if the armor was different.

_Cullen? What are __**you**__ doing here?_

Curiouser and curiouser, as one of the old tales went. Perhaps she would end up staying for a few days. Long enough, at least, to find out why the Chantry had sent one of its own to the Grey Wardens. They had only let Alistair go when their hands had been forced. Had Cullen been conscripted? Or had the situation here changed far more than she thought?

_I can stay a few days, just to see._


	3. What Dread Hand

**Three: What Dread Hand**

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_Kathil:_

She urged her mount forward. At Alistair's motion, his guard captain Emris dropped back, allowing a gap to open next to him. "Almost to Seahold," Alistair said.

"We'll see it around the next bend," she told him. There was a twisting nervousness in her gut. Her first visit here had _not_ gone well. "Alistair, do you have a plan for what you're going to say to them?"

"Do I need one? Walk in, say, 'Bann Alfstana, this is your sister, and I expect you to pretend you're happy to see her', all's well." At her dismayed look, he chuckled. "Well, there might be more shouting than that. It's not like you can inherit anything, anyway, and this whole thing where the nobles pretend they never throw mage children really grates on me."

"She was…less than polite, the first time I visited. I'd have thought she'd be more appreciative, since we found Irminric for her." Kathil sighed and pulled her hood up as an errant wind brought with it droplets of mist. "Starting to rain. Again."

"It's not called the Drowned Coast for nothing," he said. "It's beautiful, though."

"It is, at that." They rode in silence for a while. The three Mabari with them trotted past, the bitch bonded to Emris in the lead, Lorn and the other dog following. The warhounds kept up with the horses more than easily with their ground-eating trots, and spent much of their time scouting ahead and to the flanks of the main group.

She and Alistair had not spoken of the incident seven days ago. She did not intend to bring it up now. She did, however, have a curiosity, and now that things seemed to be slightly easier between them, she thought he might actually answer. "So. How is being a father, Alistair?"

The question had startled him, she could see. He shifted, saddle creaking under him. "Why do you ask?"

Kathil smiled at him, just a little. The peace between them was a tenuous thing; so much old passion and old pain twisted beneath the calm surface, ready to pull them under if they placed a foot wrong. "Because I always thought you would make a very good father. And I think Eamon was a good example for you in that regard."

"Hm. Well, since you ask…" Alistair's eyes grew distant. "I expected to love Duncan, but I wasn't really prepared for the way everything _changed_ when I held him the first time. I'm pretty sure I would do just about anything for him." He glanced over at her. "And before you ask, yes, I am going straight back to Denerim when our business at Seahold is done. I don't think I'll be traveling quite as much from now on."

She twisted her fingers in her horse's red mane, looking down, letting the animal choose its own path for a little bit. Her breath was coming a little hard to her, and she reached up to touch the Warden's Oath that hung around her neck. The touch of her fingers on the warm metal vial helped her focus. She realized Alistair was looking at her with an eyebrow raised. "I'm sorry. I'm happy for you, Alistair. He'll grow up loved and strong, just like his father."

"You don't _look_ that happy."

Kathil swallowed. "It's just—" _Just that I knew damned well that you and I would never have children together. Just that I knew that you'd be a wonderful father, and I was thinking about breaking things off with you for that reason alone, and then I went and had the __**fabulous**__ idea of putting you forward as King._ She took a deep breath. "I have apprentices now. Three of them. It's the closest thing we mages ever get to having children. They're probably getting into trouble as we speak."

Alistair was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Did you know that Wynne had a child? A son, she said. The Chantry took him away when he was born."

She stared at him. After a moment, she remembered to close her mouth, shock washing over her colder than the drizzle. "She never told me."

"She only told me close to the end. I think she wanted someone to know. She sounded so sad when she talked about him, when she said that she liked to think he had turned out something like me." It was Alistair's turn to stare at his horse's ears. "She said that mages having children happens only rarely, and when it does happen, the babies are taken away to be raised in the Chantry. If he didn't turn out to be a mage himself, he probably became a Templar. It's a strange thought that he might be in the Tower, watching over Harrowings."

"It is. And it tells me that the magic that they use to keep us from having children isn't foolproof." Kathil touched her Oath again, thinking. "Did she say who the father was?"

Alistair shook his head. "That seemed too much like prying. My bet is Irving, myself."

"Mmm. No, I don't think so," she said. "That would mean two sets of spells had failed, not just one." She had known Wynne a bit, in the Tower, as much as an apprentice could know a mage not their master. Something nagged at her memories, something small she'd noticed at lectures. "Funny. Ser Greagoir spent a lot of time in any room Wynne was in…"

He made a choking noise. "_Greagoir_? Are we talking about the _same_ Greagoir? Man about my height, nose broken a few times, no sense of humor whatsoever? Him and _Wynne_?"

"He was probably a young man once," she said. "Unlikely as it might seem. Young as, say, Ser Cullen."

"Ah, now _there's_ a name I remember. He still mooning over you?"

She felt the blood rise to her face, stinging her rain-chilled cheeks. "He…got sent to the Grey Wardens a few days after I arrived. He survived his Joining, I hear."

"They never tell me _anything_." Alistair scowled. "How did the Wardens convince Greagoir to part with him?"

"They didn't." At his surprised look, she pressed forward to explain. "There was an incident right after I came back to the Tower. Greagoir thought I was going to turn. Cullen…he helped defend me, Alistair. Drew steel on the Commander. Since it was pretty obvious that his feelings for me had compromised his commitment to his duty, they sent him away. I guess the Grey Wardens were supposed to be a punishment."

"Really." He drew out that word in that way of his. _Reeeeeeeealllllly_. "I probably don't want to know the details of this incident, do I?"

"No. You _really_ do not, Alistair." Just then, they came around the bend in the road, and were rewarded with the sight of the high watchtower. "There's Seahold. Almost there."

"As long as we can get out of this blasted _rain_, I'd be happy if it were a hovel." Then Emris rode up on the other side of Alistair, and Kathil reined in her horse and dropped back, looking at the watchtower. _So strange to think I came from here. So strange to think that this was once home._

"Something amiss?" Zevran was next to her now, cocking his head at her.

She shook her head. "I…just have a lot to think about. I wish I remembered more of this place. Even if the apprentice ritual hadn't taken the memories, I was four. I wouldn't remember much anyway. The last time I was here, I just wanted so much to find somewhere I belonged. Now, all I want is to be acknowledged. It won't change anything, but…I'd like to get to know my sister."

"Ah, and you have a chance many do not. Though I _did_ consider some of the whores' daughters sisters, in spirit if nothing else." Zevran smiled, then pointed his chin up at the looming bulk of Seahold, just coming into view. "Hopefully, you will find what you seek here."

She hoped so, too.

*****

_Cullen:_

"And there they come," Montclair said. "We'll meet them in the courtyard. Cullen, go get the rest of the Wardens."

Cullen nodded and got. A few minutes later, the dozen Wardens were lined up in the courtyard. "The one we are waiting for is traveling with the King," Montclair told him, keeping his voice low. "She is a very dangerous mage, possibly a maleficar. When I give the word, make sure she cannot use any of her talents. We will be taking her into custody. Understood?"

He nodded, and though he had a thousand questions it didn't seem like Montclair was in an answering mood. So he stood there, waiting. Watching.

It felt very familiar indeed.

The King's guards came in first, and Montclair exchanged a quick word with the captain, a dour-looking man who had a Mabari bitch sticking close to him. Then the rest of the group rode in, dismounting in the courtyard and allowing grooms to take their horses and packs. Everyone was cloaked—the drizzle had been more or less constant all day. Cullen watched the King, remembering what Kathil had told him, that she'd once had a relationship with this man.

Then, one of the cloaked figures just behind the King pulled back her hood—

_Oh, Maker, Maker, __**no**__._

Because that was _Kathil_, in armor, and she was leaning over to talk to the person next to her, and when that person pulled back his own hood he could see that it was the blond elf who had come to the Tower and brought death in his wake.

Cullen thought he knew, now, why he was here.

"Montclair," the King said. "While I'm glad to see you, why are you here and not in Amaranthine?"

Despite Montclair's Orlesian accent which softened the edges of every word, he still managed to make his words sound like icy death. "We are not here for you, your Majesty. We are here for the Grey Warden Kathil." He looked at the mage, whose eyes were widening. "Kathil. You are to be restrained pending investigation of conduct unbecoming to a member of the Grey Wardens." Then Montclair nodded to Cullen.

Numb, unable to think of what else he might do, he stepped forward and focused his will. The mage's lips were moving, and before she could do anything, he hit her with the cleansing. She shuddered, and beside her, the elf had his blades in his hands, the Mabari at her side was growling, and even the _King_ had drawn his sword—

"_Enough."_ Her voice cut through the uproar that was just beginning to grow in volume. "Lorn. Zevran. _Alistair_. The Grey Wardens are not about to murder me out of hand, I don't think." She tilted her head, looking at Montclair. "Or am I wrong? Because, ser Warden, I think you may have a fight on your hands if that is your plan."

Montclair's hand was on his sword hilt. "You will be questioned. Depending on the answers to those questions, those Wardens assembled here will decide your fate."

Cullen saw her shoulders soften and round a little. There was something strange on her face, a grim knowledge of betrayal. She looked at Cullen, and he saw her go, if possible, even paler, recognition dawning.

"I'd wondered if this day was going to come," she said after a moment, her voice quiet and clear. "I will not fight you." She glanced at the elf. "Zevran, do not do anything stupid. This is a Grey Warden matter." Then she knelt, and said something too soft to be heard to her warhound. The dog grumbled suspiciously, but when she stepped out from the group in the center of the courtyard, he did not follow.

"Cullen, Jehan, Anthoine. Take Kathil to the cells. Grey Wardens, we convene a court martial tomorrow morning." Montclair sounded satisfied.

But as he and the other two Wardens surrounded the mage, he saw both the King and the elf giving them identical dark looks. It would have been almost funny—if it didn't make the hair on the back of his neck stand up. These people had killed an Archdemon.

He thought they might well take even justice dispensed lawfully by a Grey Warden personally.

*****

_Lorn:_

He used to _like_ knights.

But now they have taken his human away from him, and she has told him to stay with her elf. This is _wrong_, he knows down to his very core. He should be able to be with her, to defend her if those blades that the knights have kept covered so far come out. But she has told him to stay, and so stay he will. Just like he did the day when the air was cold and smelled of shattered stone and frozen fire, when his human had hugged him and told him not to worry, that she would be back.

She had not said the same thing, this time. Just _stay with Zevran, Lorn. Keep him safe._

And now he is in a room with his human's elf, and the elf is pacing as if he has been trapped in a pen far too small for him, muttering. Lorn tests a bedpost for chewability, and the wood creaks under his jaws.

The elf comes over and sits down on the bed, smelling more like steel and less like leather and stone than usual. "I should go, dog," he says, and his tone holds as much unhappiness as Lorn himself is feeling. "But I will not. Foolishness, on both our parts, but I told her I would storm the gates of the Black City itself, if only she were beside me."

Lorn jumps up on the bed next to him, and whines. Why are they not going to go get his human, then? Why let those encased in metal keep her away from them?

"Don't do anything _stupid_, Zevran." The elf growls. Lorn joins him. "Well. I do not do _stupid_ things, yes? I will consider my actions carefully before I go to break her out."

Good. He gives the elf a considering tail-wag, then cocks his head. That was a noise out in the hallway, a familiar one. He is across the room in a flash, his nose glued to the crack between the door and the stone of the floor. He snuffles and finds it. Flowers and sunlight and just a _tinge_ of the incense and dust that is the smell of every Chantry Lorn has ever been in. He knows that scent, though it has been _forever_ since he has smelled it. He gives a sharp bark, demanding. The singer! The singer is _here_!

From the other side of the door, a familiar voice. "_Lorn_?"

The elf opens the door just before Lorn barrels into it to knock it open. The singer is on the other side, looking very surprised indeed. She opens her mouth, closes it again, asks, "What are _you_ doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing, dear Leiliana." The growl is gone from the elf's voice, though Lorn can still smell the unhappiness on him. "I happen to be here with our fair Grey Warden."

Lorn bumps the singer's legs. And me! But something's happened. We need to go find my human.

"There are a lot of rumors," the singer says. She drops to one knee, and pets Lorn, who licks her face with his whole body wagging, not just his tail. "Poor dog. What happened?"

There is a new voice, and everyone turns to face it. "The Grey Wardens have taken Kathil into custody. You have to believe me, both of you, that I had no idea what would happen when we came here." It is the knight, _that_ knight, the one they used to travel with and who used to make his human smell like lightning when she thought about him. He makes her smell like smoke and dust, now, like the human word _confusion_. He snorts at the knight. Is he here to help fetch his human?

The knight ignores him. "Let's step into Zevran's room. The situation is…complicated."

They do, and then they close the door and Lorn watches it and listens for the sound of his human approaching. The elf and the two humans are talking, arguing about what is best to do. Evidently, the knights had some sort of _right_ to take Lorn's human away from him, which is of course wrong because nobody in the world has that right. There is the word _maleficar_ and the words _court martial_, the words _holding cell_ and _basement_ and _we have to wait and see what the Grey Wardens say_.

In the end, waiting is agreed upon, and the knight and the singer go away and it is just Lorn and the elf again. Lorn does not understand. Not one bit.

But his human told him to stay with the elf. _Keep him safe._

So when the elf pulls off his shirt and throws it against the wall with a growled, unfamiliar word, then lies down on the bed, Lorn hops up on the bed and settles down beside him. It is not fair, that they must wait.

"I know," the elf says. "But wait we must. Has anyone ever told you that you smell like three Mabari shoved together in one skin, Lorn?" One of the elf's hands passes down Lorn's shoulder and finds the deep scars there, the ones that still ache when it rains.

He sets his head on the elf's stomach. He will wait, and he will guard, and soon they will go fetch his human and they will go away from this place that smells of restless sea and mist and rain.

"Yes, Lorn. We will do that." The elf closes his eyes. "Soon."

*****

_Kathil:_

She'd once joked to Alistair about jails, and the fact that she had never seen one from the inside until she'd become a Grey Warden. The joke was no longer funny, even in memory.

The basement was cold, and damp. Had _always_ been cold and damp. Her dream about a childhood run-in with a giant rat had been more memory than dream, though the ceiling down here was _much_ lower than it was in her dream. Shesen, her nurse, must have been a very small woman to have been able to swing her up like she had in her dream.

Kathil sat now, in her thin pants and shirt, and wished very much that she had a blanket. At least the straw that served as a bed was fresh, not rotting. She'd been stripped of armor and weapons, her hands tied (in _front_ of her, as small a mercy as that was), and been thrown in this cell where the walls wept dampness.

And they had not gagged her. Cullen stood outside the cell door, and she could only hear from him the usual soft sounds of a Templar at rest, just the very slight creak of the leather and metal of his armor. Should she try to cast a spell, he would feel it and shut her down. She _might_ be able to pull off the sidestep spell and free herself before Cullen could react, though.

_And confirm my guilt before a single question is asked. No, I don't think so._

Instead, she got up and came to the front of her cell. "Strange, Cullen. Last time it was you caged up, and me free."

There was silence in response, at first. Then, "Are any of the creations of the Maker ever free?"

That was a line from one of the Stethit Discourses, she remembered. "Maybe not. Cullen…" She sighed and set her forehead against the metal grate of the door. "I'm sorry. About everything."

She heard him shift, and then he turned to her. "What did you _do_, Kathil? They haven't told me what the charges are." His face still had that openness she remembered, tempered with a little suspicion in his eyes.

"I imagine the charges are that I somehow used fell magic to survive the Archdemon's death," she said, her voice tight and prickly in her throat. "That I live at all is likely to be used as evidence against me."

"What do you mean? You killed the dragon. Shouldn't that be…it, somehow?"

Kathil knew how Riordan had felt, now. _Innocent as babes we were, walking toward our death so blissfully._ "It's more complicated than that," she told him.

And then told him _how_ it was complicated.

When she was finished, he stood stunned in silence, much as Alistair and she had the night before the battle at Fort Drakon. "And since I was the one who took the final blow, and I am a mage, and I disappeared a few months after the battle…I imagine that the Grey Wardens are _very_ interested in how I survived."

Cullen recovered his voice. "How _did_ you survive?"

"Another long story, and one you'll probably hear tomorrow," she said. "Since I believe I'm about to be asked about my supposed crimes. Ah, sweet Andraste, I wish I'd never come here."

"Why _did_ you come? I thought you were at the Circle Tower. _Safe._"

And in that last word there was a world of worry, and when he said it her mind flashed back to standing in front of Alistair, when she was trying to find her way back from the old roads. _We were family once. More than family._

And Cullen was standing there, and he too had been family once. A strange sort of family, but she knew now why she'd returned at last to the Tower. "Because Bann Alfstana and I share a father. Alistair wanted to force her to acknowledge me as family. Not that I think that's going to happen now."

Now his features had melted into confusion. "But mages—"

"Have no families but the Circle. I know. Alistair recognized the stamp of the old Arl on my features. And…" She trailed off. The ropes around her wrists were making her fingers ache, and she was so very cold. "I don't know, Cullen. I just don't know. It seems a bit daft, now."

But there was a look on Cullen's face like maybe he understood. "I was raised in the Chantry near Highever," he said. "Abandoned on their doorstep as an infant, the revered mother told me. I always wanted to know who my parents were, if my mother was just some poor girl who got into trouble and couldn't raise me or…didn't want me. I'll never know. If I had a chance to know who my parents were, to have family…I'd try to find them and talk to them."

She closed her eyes, and a thought occurred to her. Alistair's voice. _Did you know that Wynne had a child? A son, she said._

Oh, _Maker_.

Because take Wynne's kind eyes and put them in a much younger face, a _male_ face, and you just _might_ have Cullen. Abandoned to the Chantry when he was born. Growing up thinking he was unwanted. Thrown away.

When the truth might be that he was no such thing.

There was nothing she could possibly say to Cullen about it. Kathil's stomach was twisted around itself, her hands hurt, and she could feel Cullen looking at her, probably wondering what was wrong with her. _Not that I know, myself._ "I think I'm going to try to get some sleep," she said, trying to keep her tongue from tripping over itself, and retreated from the door.

The breath she heard Cullen let out held resignation and maybe a little anger in it.

Zevran had asked her if she'd been attached to this Templar, once. She'd given him a half-truth in response. They had known each other as children, she'd said. But, the truth—

_If we were anything other than mage and Templar? If we were both born in another country, in another century? If I could have put aside everything I was, the taint of the magic in my blood, my connection to the Fade?_

_We would have been brilliant together. Probably doomed. But brilliant._

It hurt to think about, on top of everything else, and right now she had neither Lorn nor Zevran to curl up with for comfort. She lay down in the straw, her bound hands making her clumsy.

Tomorrow, there would be a reckoning.

She simply hoped to survive it.


	4. What the Hand Dare Seize the Fire

**Four: ****What the Hand Dare Seize the Fire**

_(Thank you to everyone who's commented! Your feedback is much loved. And yes, there is more plot ahead.)_

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_Alistair:_

The Wardens almost did not let him attend the court martial.

But he blustered and bellowed (all that practice he'd gotten in the last few years was good for _something_) and pointed out that he _was_ a Grey Warden, and besides, even if the Wardens were not answerable to the Crown, didn't they remember that until recently they had actually been banned from Ferelden? The repeal _could_ be revoked.

He wasn't able to talk Zevran, Leiliana, or Lorn into the chamber they were using for the court martial, so the three of them were waiting outside the barred double doors. Montclair told him in no uncertain terms that Alistair was there as an observer only, and that he wasn't to speak. He was sitting off to one side, in a hard wooden chair that was already making his rear end go numb, and he was watching Kathil standing, her hands bound in front of her, her head bowed. Cullen stood nearby, looking uncomfortable.

_Good. You bastard, I know you love her, and you betrayed her._

Of course, the same charge could be leveled at him. Which was one of the reasons he had to be here.

Montclair returned from barring the doors to the hall, and walked to the front of the room, his boots ringing. The man was clean-shaven, his dark hair cropped close to his head, old enough that he was starting to lose what little hair he had. And he was looking at Kathil with a grim light in his eyes.

"Grey Warden Kathil," Montclair said, and his voice rang in the hall. "We have been looking for you for these three years, to put questions to you. You know, as we all do, that the slaying of an Archdemon requires the death of a Grey Warden, that every Blight has been broken with the blood of one of our brothers in arms. And yet, Warden, you still live. So that leads us to certain possibilities. One, that the Archdemon did not die after all. Two, that you are dead and yet still breathing. Three, that there is some other power at work here. So we have come with that question, and with others."

Kathil raised her head. Her face was calm. Composed. Montclair did not know her, had never met her before. He would not know that the calm was a mask, perfected by many years in the Tower. "To be clear, ser Montclair. You want to know how I managed to break a Blight and still live?"

"That is the question put to you. You will answer."

She twisted her fingers together, interlacing them, and the skin on the joints paled. "I have a question of my own, first. Are you aware that I had a…liaison with the Grey Warden Alistair, now the King of Ferelden?"

Montclair raised an eyebrow. "He did not mention it, no."

She glanced at Alistair briefly and he read a _sorry_ in her eyes before she continued to look at Montclair. "We were the only two Wardens left in Ferelden. The months leading up to the Archdemon were…intense. We grew very close, and were intimate with one another." She took a breath, and the mask slipped a bit, just briefly.

_Here it comes,_ he thought. She would tell the truth and damn them both, and Morrigan into the bargain. Not that he minded the last.

Then she surprised him.

"I was with child when I slew the archdemon," Kathil said, her voice quiet and clear, and her lie so utterly _outrageous_ that the Grey Wardens, _all_ of them, looked _completely _taken in. "No more than a few weeks along. The child was the one who absorbed the darkspawn essence. It was a fluke, ser Warden. An accident. All I can think is that the child had absorbed the taint of both of its parents, and so was able to hold the soul of the Old God. I was as surprised as everyone else that I woke, afterward."

Montclair was staring at her. He rapped out, "And the child?"

"I left Denerim about four months after the Blight was broken, when I started running the risk of having my pregnancy discovered. Alistair had just wed, after all, and the last thing he needed was for it to become known that there was yet another royal bastard running around the world." She glanced at Alistair again. Clever woman. Clever, subtle, _devious_ woman. "I went south, into the Korcari Wilds. I ran into a…creature, a few months after I arrived, when I was starting to slow down. It savaged me and left me for dead. I was discovered by a tribe of Chasind, who nursed me back to health. I stayed with them long enough to bear the child. The Wilderfolk may be superstitious and primitive, but they saved my life. And then—" her voice hitched, and her bound hands curled together, fingers intertwined—"Then it became obvious why Grey Wardens do not have children together. Ever. The child was deformed. The midwife cut his throat with the same knife she had used to cut his cord, out of mercy. And so the cycle was completed. Simply a little late."

Silence reigned in the hall. Finally, Montclair cleared his throat. "Where does the body lie?"

"In an unmarked grave deep in the Wilds. I couldn't lead you to it even if I wanted to, ser Warden. You may confirm my relationship with Alistair with him, or with Zevran. We were not trying to hide it. And you may also confirm the timing of my disappearance with the counselors at the palace. Or possibly the Princess Consort. I believe she was overjoyed to see me gone." She was flushed now, the scar on the side of her face flaring deep red. "And I also bear the scars from the creature that attacked me. Though I cannot show you unless my hands are unbound."

"Very well." Montclair gestured at Cullen. "Free her hands."

The strange thing was that it was _plausible_. If Alistair hadn't _been_ there, hadn't been the one to have sex with Morrigan and be invaded and defiled by her power…he could believe it. He watched Cullen untie her hands, and then she pulled off her shirt.

Underneath, she wore only a breastband, and that hid little enough of the scar. Kathil stood, her chin lifted, under the eyes of twelve men who had the power to end her life if they chose (and him, who of them all might have the best chance at killing her, but he knew himself well enough to know that no matter what he never, never _could_) and met each of their eyes in turn, saving Cullen for last.

"I am a mage, Grey Wardens. And I am one of you." She pulled her shirt back on. "It was not myself I sacrificed to the Archdemon, though I was willing. It was my son. And that, I assure you, is far, _far_ worse."

Alistair could see Cullen's mouth working. _Don't speak,_ he begged the former Templar silently. _If you have any idea what she's been through—_

But it was one of the other Grey Wardens, Anthoine, who spoke. "I was told that in Ferelden, your Circle makes sure mages can never have children when they are brought to apprentice."

"So they do." She smiled thinly. "It does not always work, and when it does work it does not always last. Ask the Chantry about the infants they find on their stoops sometime. Not all of them are the produce of incautious servant girls. The darkspawn taint likely interfered with the spells laid on me—and I entered the Tower when I was a child of four, gentlemen. Bindings grow thin and break, especially in those of us not living in the Tower, eating the food and drinking the water. I had been gone from the Tower for nearly a year when I—conceived."

She was such an _accomplished_ liar. Alistair wondered where she'd learned—and then remembered fifteen years spent in the Tower, watched every moment, rarely out from under the eyes of authority. Remembered her at the Landsmeet, with the eyes of all of the assorted nobles on her, speaking out against Loghain. Remembered, too, the day they met Zevran, remembered how her eyes had narrowed when the elf offered his oath, and that flash, just the briefest instant, of _recognition_ in her dark gaze.

He no longer wondered what she saw in the assassin. They were two of a kind, it seemed.

There was a murmur rising in the room. Montclair's voice cut through it. "We will withdraw, and confer. Grey Warden Kathil, stay where you are. Your Majesty, if you would be so good as to keep an eye on her?" Though the words were mild, the tone was not. There was a reason that Alistair hadn't talked about his relationship with Kathil when he'd been questioned by the Wardens, and that tone in the Warden-General's voice was part of it.

Then the rest of the Grey Wardens filed out of the room through the back door, and he was up from his chair and starting towards her. "You—"

She closed the distance between them in three long steps and put her arms around him, and he folded her in his own arms. "Keep your voice down," she said. "They may have listeners close by. Let them think that we're whispering sweet nothings to one another." She curled her body into his a bit, and _that_ was so familiar that it made a knife twist in him. A reminder of another life.

"You are _brilliant_," he said, his mouth close to her ear. She still smelled like lyrium and ice, he noted, and as a wonder that smell seemed to have a bit less hold on him than it once had.

"Only when I'm trying not to die." She took a deep breath inward, and sagged a little. "They might kill me anyway, but I think they bought the story at least. You're clear, Alistair. They can't do anything to you now."

"They won't kill you, not if I have anything at all to say about it."

She shook her head a little. "You might not. Alistair, we both agreed to abide by the laws and judgments of the Grey Wardens when we took part in the Joining. The duty that cannot be forsworn. We forgot that, being the only two Wardens in Ferelden. We were our own law, for a while, but we're not any more. I'll abide by the judgment they give me."

It was a point, but Alistair remembered he had an even better point. "There are three people outside the doors who won't agree with that, Kathil. Especially not if it means that you…get hurt."

"Three?" She raised her head a little. "Lorn and Zevran, yes, but who's the third?"

He grinned, briefly. "Leiliana is here. And I think between the three of them, even if I didn't join in, they would make the Grey Wardens feel a bit unwelcome. And possibly a bit dead."

"Oh sweet _Andraste_. What is Leiliana _doing_ here?"

"Traveling to Denerim from Orlais," he said. "And with her usual gift of being exactly where she's needed, when she's needed, she showed up at Seahold just before we did. You know, maybe the Maker does give her visions."

"Preserve us from her gift of timing, then," Kathil said, and there was an odd note in her voice. "I hear people coming back. That was quick."

He let her go and walked back to his seat, sitting down just as the door opened. Kathil had turned back toward the front of the hall, her hands at her sides, the mask of calm coming over her face once more.

They both waited, to hear judgment.

*****

_Cullen:_

They filed back into the hall in silence, and when Cullen saw her standing there, just _looking_ at them, he felt like there wasn't quite enough air in the room. He had never imagined ending up here. Killing mages turned abominations, yes. Killing fledgling mages who had failed their Harrowings, yes.

Standing in judgment over a Grey Warden, who was the closest thing he'd ever been to friends with a mage? No. Not really.

"We have discussed, and decided." Montclair was walking towards Kathil, and as he approached the mage's stance shifted, just slightly. "Your story is difficult to believe. It _is_ plausible, however. And so we will not execute you. There are other charges, however. You are suspected of being a maleficar, a dabbler in forbidden magic. How do you answer that?"

Her eyes narrowed, and one hand came up to touch the small steel vial she wore on a chain around her neck. "By asking you who brings the charges, and what possible evidence they might have. I do not practice blood magic, gentlemen, but it is very difficult to prove the _absence_ of a school of magic." With some discomfort, Cullen realized that they had not rebound her hands. She was free, and her calm was beginning to be replaced by anger.

Angry mages were very dangerous creatures indeed.

"Ser Greagoir of the Circle Tower." Montclair's eyes were hooded, and it was difficult to tell how he felt about the words he spoke. "And he has no evidence other than the…incident that brought Cullen to our ranks. He believes you had Cullen under your control."

"Ser Greagoir is a good man," Kathil said, and for some reason that surprised him, that she sounded exactly like she believed her words. "But he has served in the Tower for so long that I'm afraid that he's forgotten what it is like to be a _young_ man. Cullen and I—" She stopped, and glanced at him, her expression unreadable. Her anger was fading, it seemed. "We spoke some, before he took vows and while I was an apprentice. We were friends. Cullen made a mistake, ser Warden. All of us do, sometimes." She wasn't talking to Montclair now, but directly to Cullen. "I am sorry you were taken away from a life I know you loved because of me, but there is not much I can do about that now."

He didn't know what to say to her, and it was safer to keep his silence.

"And what say you, Grey Warden Cullen?" Montclair asked.

Nobody had ever asked him about what had happened, when he had joined the elf in defending Kathil's sleeping body. And he could damn her with a word here, if he wanted to. _Why do I suddenly have a little bit of sympathy for Maferath?_ It would be so _easy_. Denounce her as a blood mage, let them execute her, wash his soul clean of the temptation she represented, and lay to rest the nightmares that still haunted him sometimes.

There was no pleading in her at all. She stood straight as a Templar, her shoulders square, and he could still see a little of the dark-eyed girl who he had run into on a back stair in the Circle Tower. Long ago, in another life entirely.

Defend her once. Betray her once. _And what is the third answer, Cullen?_

"She speaks no falsehood," he said. His voice was shaking a little. "My thoughts and actions were my own. Unwise, but my own."

_Once, tell the truth._

And she looked at him, and for a moment he felt like he was tumbling into that gaze where dark currents moved, the dream-waters of the Fade rising. Then the moment was past, she blinked and looked away, and Montclair was clearing his throat.

"It seems we have no evidence, and no charges," the Warden-General said. "The court martial is concluded. You are free to go, Grey Warden Kathil. But know that we _will_ be watching you. We are in communication with Knight Commander Greagoir. Should there be even a suspicion of ill-meant actions, we will hear of it."

There was just the slightest twist to her lips, the scar that touched the corner of her mouth exaggerating it. Cullen thought he could almost hear her say, _And that is different than every moment I am in the Tower how, exactly? _All she actually said was, "Thank you, Warden-General." She turned on her heel and walked away, her shoes making soft and echoing sounds on the stone floor of the hall. Cullen barely recognized that the King was moving before Alistair had made it to the door, throwing the bar and opening it for her. There was a happy bark from the other side of the door.

Then the door was closed and they were gone. "It is done, then." Montclair pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger briefly. "Raoulin, Laurens, both of you will ride for Weisshaupt tomorrow. The rest of us will go back to Amaranthine. "

Raoulin was the oldest of them, if not the most highly ranked, a man with a deeply lined face and a beard peppered with white. "I think not," he said. "Montclair, a large band of darkspawn is heading our way. Some distance off, they're just on the edge of my ability to sense them. They are not moving quickly, but they _are_ moving."

Montclair nearly snarled. "We're too close to Orzammar. Well. Time for a hunt."

Cullen opened his mouth, and was almost startled when words tumbled out. "Will we be asking the other Grey Wardens to join us?" All faces in the room turned to him. "If there's a lot of darkspawn, we could use the help. The King travels with a squad of guards, all of them seasoned warriors. And _we_ have no mages."

It was Jehan, of them all closest to Cullen's own age, who broke the silence that followed. "A good idea, I think. Nothing heals wounds between men better than a good fight, eh?"

"We cannot compel the King to fight with us, though I think that he might, just for the sport." Montclair's words were measured. "And it is a good point, Cullen. We cannot turn down help when it's available. I will speak to the other Wardens tonight. We ride for the darkspawn at dawn."

*****

_Zevran:_

He was usually a patient man. One had to be, in his line of work. There was the waiting for assignments, the waiting for targets to move into position, the waiting for the handsome gentleman across the way to decide that he was interesting enough to call over. So much waiting.

Only occasionally was the waiting torture.

Such as now, when he stood shoulder to shoulder with Leiliana, their backs against the stone wall, across from a pair of double doors that led to the hall where Kathil was currently being questioned by her fellow Grey Wardens. One of them had emerged from a side hall a while ago, to ask him if Kathil had once carried on a relationship with the King.

He'd raised an eyebrow at the man and said, "Ah, if you only had been there! Such sweet music they made together, all those nights camped in the shadow of the Blight. Keeping us all up late into the night with the sounds of their lovemaking. Though perhaps not as late as they _might_ have kept us up, had Alistair taken my advice about the roots…"

The young Grey Warden had turned a delicate shade of scarlet and retreated. Leiliana kicked Zevran's ankle. "What? It is the truth, is it not?" Leiliana hadn't answered.

Then there had been nothing but silence, and then indistinct voices from the other side of the doors. "Are you _certain_ there are no good ways into the hall?" he asked Leiliana now.

"Are you accusing me of not being thorough, Zevran?" Leiliana's beautiful mouth was twisted into a frown. "There are three ways in, all in plain view, and they aren't allowing servants in. No matter how quiet you are, someone is going to spot you. Just _wait_. It will not help her to burst in there and start a fight."

Across the hall, Lorn lay with his nose pressed to the crack between the door and the floor, his ears forward, his whole being concentrating on what was happening on the other side of the door. If the warhound suddenly started throwing himself against the doors, Zevran would know the time for even a pretense of subtlety was past.

He contented himself with planning ways to kill each one of the Grey Wardens in the hall. The oldest one favored his right leg, and he would be slower coming off of it than another man might, and he still wore heavy armor. An unbalanced man in one of those suits was a dead man. The one who led—Montclair, he thought he remembered—wore pauldrons that did not extend down as far as most, probably because he found they limited his flexibility. It would be easy enough for a knife to find its way through the gap created there into his heart. The young one, Jehan, he would be an interesting fight, since his light armor and thin weapons spoke of someone who fought naturally in Zevran's own style. He would be quick and light on his feet. Zevran would distract him and let Leiliana put an arrow into his heart.

And the former Templar, Cullen, _he_ was a man used to standing and waiting. He would be a thoughtful opponent, which meant that Zevran would give him no time to think. Get in under his defenses and in back of him, distract him with a flanking attack, and then move into the opening created. He could almost feel the Templar's warm blood washing over his hands.

Leiliana had her unstrung bow leaning against the wall next to her. He knew from long experience that she could string that bow in three heartbeats, and have her first arrow winging its way into battle within five. She could provide covering fire while he and Lorn went in. Alistair was armed as well, and Zevran thought he could count on the man to defend Kathil, if nothing else.

"You always have the oddest look on your face when you're planning how to kill people," Leiliana said. "Half determination, half anticipation."

"Do I? Ah, I suppose I must if you have caught me." He ran a thumb over the hilt of his off-hand dagger. "Simply planning for the worst, my dear Chantry mouse."

Lorn's ears pricked up and he got to his feet, his stubby tail starting to flail. Several heartbeats (or perhaps it was an eternity? Difficult to tell) the bar on the hall doors was thrown back, and from the opening doors emerged the one he had been waiting for.

Kathil stooped to scratch Lorn and speak to him briefly, and then she was throwing her arms around Zevran and kissing him, warm and _alive_. It was a good thing that they were kissing, because he very much doubted he could have come up with coherent words in that moment.

Luckily for him, Leiliana was there. "They let you go?"

Kathil let go of Zevran and went to hug Leiliana. "Apparently, I'm not a maleficar. Not today, at least. And it's good to see you, Leiliana."

"We should probably get out of the hall," Alistair pointed out. He'd come through the doors after Kathil, and shut them after himself. "I'm not looking forward to my next conversation with Montclair. There's probably going to be shouting involved. The rooms they've provided for me are probably going to be best."

So they all retreated down the hall and up the stairs, and Kathil told the story of what had happened during her court martial. Alistair called for a meal, and soon afterwards Kathil was asleep on a low chaise, her face buried in Lorn's neck and one arm thrown over him. Leiliana had been telling a story about a man she had met on the road who had claimed to have an improbable number of wives, cats, and kittens. "Do you think I bored her?" the bard asked, looking over at the sleeping mage with some concern.

"Jail cells aren't exactly restful," Alistair said. "She probably needs the sleep. You know, I've been thinking—"

"Ah, a miracle!" Zevran called over to him. "Truly, we should call upon the Chantry and let them know."

Alistair gave him a dark look. "I was thinking that things have probably turned out for the best."

"How is that?" Leiliana asked.

The Grey Warden turned King sighed, just a little. "She probably would have been a truly _terrifying_ queen."

Zevran raised an eyebrow. "And it took you three years to work this out, Alistair? It is not as though it were not obvious. "

But anything else he might have to say about the wisdom (or lack thereof) of Alistair not marrying Kathil was interrupted by a knock at the door. "Your Majesty," a voice said on the other side. "Warden-General Montclair is here to see you and the Grey Warden Kathil, if she is in."

The mage had raised her head sleepily. "What, he's found _more_ evidence that I might be a maleficar?"

"I can send him away," Alistair offered. "I've gotten good at that."

She sat up and rubbed her eyes, then her wrists that were chafed red by rope. "It might be important. Bring him in. I will warn you, though, that if he wants to throw me in a cell again, I'm _not_ going to be nearly as cooperative as I was last time. I want a real bed tonight, thank you."

"Just don't bring the hold down around our ears." Alistair raised his voice. "Send the man in, Emris."

Zevran got up and crossed the room, sitting down next to Kathil. And so it was that he was lounging next to his Grey Warden when Montclair came into the room and delivered the news that none of them were expecting—though perhaps they ought to have.

"There is a force of darkspawn headed this way, Grey Wardens. Will you come with us, and fight?"


	5. In The Forests of the Night

**Five: In The Forests of the Night**

_(Author's note: The quote at the end is from an old Scottish ballad, "Twa Corbies", with the language updated a bit. There is a version by Steelye Span out there if you'd like to hear the tune.)_

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* * *

  
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_Kathil:_

Of course they went.

She was a Grey Warden. It was what she _did_. Lorn went where she did. Zevran came with her for the joy of fighting at her side, and probably because he wanted to keep an eye on the other Wardens. Leliana came, she thought, because she wondered what was going to happen next.

And Alistair, who had been a Grey Warden before he had been a king, came because he _still_ thought of himself more as a Warden than a ruler. She probably should have made him stay behind, but in the end it had proven too much of a temptation to have one more battle together. _I suppose we Fereldens are still a little like our barbarian forebears,_ she thought with some amusement. _Point us at an enemy and give us a sword and we're the happiest people in the whole world._

They rode along the Lost River until they could all feel the darkspawn. Then they gave the horses to one of Alistair's guards and told him to take them back to Seahold. If the darkspawn made it this far—they were always hungry. Horse or human, it made no difference.

The darkspawn _were_ hunger. Kathil had felt it herself over the past few years, the burning in her blood that drove her to dig into her packs late at night in hopes that she'd secreted just one more hard biscuit or piece of horehound at the bottom. Hunger of all different kinds. Emptiness yearning to be filled.

She closed her eyes briefly, remembering the Black City, screaming with the absence of its Maker.

Walking with men was different than riding with them. It was somehow more intimate, without having to manage animals that had a tendency to take irrational dislikes to each other, to grass blowing in the wind, to vaguely menacing rocks, and even to sodding _air_. There were grumbles and moans, Leliana teasing one of the Orlais-born Grey Wardens (who was younger than Kathil, much to her surprise, because she'd spent so long thinking of herself as the very youngest and least of her brethren), and of course there was the usual complement of calls as the Grey Wardens confirmed their impressions of _how far_ and _how many_ and _how quickly_.

Lorn paced at her side, the blue stripes of his kaddis glistening in the rain. He looked up at her and let his tongue loll. Was this not the _finest_ day possible? They were going to get to bite _darkspawn_.

"Indeed," she said. "Many darkspawn, I think. Where are the other Mabari, Lorn?"

Snort, dance to the side. Doing a flank sweep. He was supposed to be on forward sweep, but it was a fine thing to be walking next to his human towards battle.

Kathil chuckled. "Go, pup. Do what you're supposed to be doing." Lorn snorted and trotted ahead, stretching out his legs.

"You're in a good mood." Leliana fell in next to her. "It's been ages since I've seen you happy on your way to battle."

It was true. She'd spent the first few months after the Joining scared and cold and confused, but as spring and summer had arrived, she'd discovered that it was _good_ to be using her Maker-given gifts for something other than study. Then she'd learned to use a sword, and that had felt _right_.

But after the Landsmeet…she had gone back to being cold and a little scared, knowing an end was pressing on them. "It's not like I haven't been fighting," she said. "But it's good to be around other Grey Wardens. I never did get that part. Just the bitter parts."

The bard's nose twitched. "Even after yesterday?"

"Even so." And, surprisingly, that too was true. There were suspicious looks, of course, but for the most part these men seemed to be willing to let bygones be bygones. At least, they pretended to, and the pretense was enough for the moment.

"You're a very strange woman sometimes, Kathil." Then Leliana smiled, which was good because she had one of the most beautiful smiles that Kathil had ever seen. "But you seem to be doing well. Finally figured out that Zevran thinks you hung the Maker's own stars in the sky, did you?"

"I'm not sure I would put it like that." She cast her gaze over the group and found Zevran's cloaked shape, built narrower than most of the men with them and with a way of walking that owned much more grace. "But we are together, after a fashion."

Leliana chuckled, her voice low and musical. "After a _fashion_, she says. I am happy for you, dearest. I would say that he is a good man, but that would be a lie. He is, though, an _interesting_ man. Which I think might be a better match for you."

Kathil felt herself going red, and tipped her face up so that the rain could cool it. "I suppose he is, at that. What about you? Did you find Marjolaine?"

"Ah, that I did." And now it was Leliana's turn to press her lips together, her jaw firming just slightly. "Not the happiest of reunions. It is a story more suited for the campfire than the march. I will tell you later?" The question was accompanied by a tilt of her head and a raising of her fingers to her mouth.

Kathil nodded, answering both the question and Leliana's request for silence on the subject. Then front ahead of them came a howl, and Lorn was running back at them, and the Warden named Raoulin was stopped dead in his tracks, holding up a hand. "Small group, forty or fifty or so, headed our way," Raoulin said. "The bulk of the group is still about three miles off."

They could all feel the larger group, but the smaller group was nearly masked by the bulk of the darkspawn ahead. "We're going to lose the light soon," Anthoine called. The dusk was deepening rapidly around them. "We should stop here, Montclair. Light some torches and fires. Give them something to home in on. "

"We need something to put our backs against, else we're going to be surrounded and overrun," Montclair said. He cast a glance at Alistair's guards, who were looking uneasy. "Did the Mabari find anything?"

Emris spoke now, stepping forward. "A cliff runs on the inland side of the trail, about a quarter mile off, so Yvrenne says." He glanced down at the Mabari bitch who cocked her head at him and then sneezed, shaking her head. "It's not ideal, but it will do—at least until the darkspawn find their way to the top of the cliff."

"This group won't," Anthoine said.

"The next one will, though," Alistair muttered. Kathil was keeping her mouth shut, stroking Lorn's head and feeling the Mabari's weight leaning on her thigh and hip.

Montclair turned to the King. "Did you have something to add, your Majesty?"

"You know, I really hate it when people call me that," Alistair said to no one in particular. "Look, Montclair. You don't fight much with mage firepower behind you in Orlais, do you?"

The Warden-General glanced at Kathil briefly. "We do not. Mages are too fragile to be risked to battle. They serve merely in advisor roles."

"I thought so. What we need, Montclair, is a funnel. Somewhere that forces the darkspawn to pass through a space about…Kathil? Help me out here?"

"Thirty feet across, no more," Kathil said, feeling a certain amount of grim satisfaction at the uneasy look on Montclair's face. "Forty if we have enough people here skilled with a bow to pick off those that get smart and sneak around the edges. I can lay down one of the big lightning or ice spells. By the time the darkspawn cross it—and they will cross it, except for the mages and the archers—they'll be half dead."

"And then we're waiting on the edge of that spell," Alistair said. "Kathil's around to hit them with those ice spells of hers, and we kill them."

Beside her, Zevran spoke. "And if you really wish to spoil their evening, place those of us without the darkspawn taint in ambush on the other side, with bows. Their archers stop before the spell's edge, and we take care of them from that side, yes?"

"That only works with small groups traveling close together," Leliana pointed out. "Remember, that got us in trouble in Redcliffe Village."

Trust Leliana and her memory to dredge _that_ one up. The Orlesian Grey Wardens were staring at them in the thickening gloom. "What did you think we were _doing_ for the year between Ostagar and Fort Drakon?" Kathil asked them.

"Holding tea parties, I think," Alistair said. "Possibly with woodland creatures. Did you remember the good cups, Leliana? I think I sense some darkspawn bunnies." Leliana was grinning, and any moment now she was going to laugh, and then Zevran was going to make a comment about that laugh and how much he enjoyed how the act of laughing made the bard's bosom look—

And it felt so very _good_ to be doing this again. She had almost forgotten what it was like, how they had survived everything together. It made up for looks that the Grey Wardens were giving her, as if they had all suddenly become aware that she was a mage and therefore _dangerous._

Except Cullen. Cullen looked like he'd known that all along.

_Damnation._

"A funnel if we can find one, gentlemen," she said, her voice faltering a little. "If not, I can simply work on those trying to flank us, and hit clusters with spells."

Emris had been in conference with his Mabari. "There is a place that might do. But it's a distance off, and dark's closing in. We need to get moving if we want to be there before we kill ourselves trying to reach it."

Montclair nodded. "Let Yvrenne lead, then." He turned away sharply from them, looking into the gloom that held the unseen enemy. "And hope we get there before they catch us."

*****

_Cullen:_

There were good reasons that they locked mages up in the Tower. Hearing Kathil talk so casually about the strategy of using magic to kill the maximum number of darkspawn for the least effort reminded him forcibly of that fact. Mages were meant to be in libraries, towers, safe, _controlled—_

And there was the distinct possibility that this feeling that was creeping up his spine and seizing his shoulders was something akin to jealousy.

But he kept his head down and his eyes on where he was walking. They were almost to the place they would make their stand, an indentation in the cliff carved by a boisterous stream, and it was getting harder to see where he was walking. He swore under his breath as a stone moved underfoot and sent him stumbling.

There was a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. "Thanks," Cullen said as he regained his balance.

"It was no trouble." He cringed as he heard a voice that was beginning to become familiar—Zevran. The elf's face was invisible, shadowed by his hood. "A word of advice, Warden. You do have a heart under that armor, yes? Remember that, and remember that mages bleed as red as the rest of us."

Then the elf dropped back, probably to walk next to Kathil. Even Cullen could feel the darkspawn now, the hungry itch of them between his shoulderblades. "Half a mile," Raoulin called. "Running out of time."

"We're here," Emris called back from ahead of them. "Quickly—we're in luck, the rain's stopped for the moment, we can get the torches lit." And then everything was in motion, they were piling their packs at the back of the notch, the King's guards and the elf and the bard were heading out into the darkness along with two of the Mabari ("Lorn stays with me to keep darkspawn off of me while I'm casting," he overheard Kathil say) and there were torches lit, the black stone of the cliff rising up and blending into the cloud-blank sky.

The mage was pacing off the opening of the notch, and she looked somehow _alive_ in a way he'd never seen in her before, at least not since they had turned sixteen and he had taken vows. _Don't pay attention_, he told himself. _She has her tasks. You have yours._

The battlefield was not ideal. They were in cramped quarters, the fourteen of them (fifteen with Kathil's Mabari who was prancing around like a puppy in anticipation of battle) crammed into a space about the size of the hall they'd spent most of the day in yesterday. Large for a room, small for a fight. They'd have to be careful if they were to hit only darkspawn with their weapons.

Jehan and Anthoine had retreated to the back of the notch with their bows, and the rest of them arrayed themselves along the line that Kathil had marked as safe. "A hundred yards," Raoulin said. "And closing."

"For Thine is the lightning that is born from the storm, and Thine is the wind that shakes the forest, and _Thine_ is the water that wears the mountains, and _Thine_ is the fire that gives the stone its shape—"

And she was speaking, _singing,_ and he could feel the Veil shredding and the dark water of the Fade rising, and out here away from the Tower it was a thing of fear and magnificence. "And we have broken the Golden City, o Maker, and we are the rising wind and your children crying—"

From the mage's hands poured a storm.

"And Thy enemies are our enemies, and they _cannot stand before us_."

The storm was abruptly _real_, so real that Cullen's nose felt like it was about to freeze off, and then the darkspawn were coming. Dimly, he was aware of Kathil stepping back, the _thwip_ of arrows flying past his head.

Then, all was battle.

He killed darkspawn. Genlocks and hurlocks, their skinned-looking faces with their gaping mouths and sharp teeth, came at him and he dispatched them, one by one. They came through the storm, and kept coming. Set. Balance. Block. And _turn_.

Once, when he had three of them coming at him at the same time, he heard a murmured word and abruptly all three of the darkspawn froze in place. He shattered one, kicked one over, and drove his sword through the throat of a third. He didn't stop to think about it, because the feeling of the tattered Veil was all around him and he was far too busy for anything but a faint sense of gratitude.

Then he was aware of something else. The storm had faded and they were still killing darkspawn, the battle spreading into the entrance of the notch, and he heard _laughter_. And past him ran Kathil, her armor going strange colors in the flickering torchlight, and she had a sword and was quite _handily_ killing hurlocks _and I thought that armor was just for show oh Maker's Breath that's the __**King**__ next to her!_

As abruptly as it began, it was done.

"Clear!" Roulin was shouting. "The _Wardens_!"

"Most vicious bastards under the Maker's sun," the King called, and they were laughing and shouting and the darkspawn corpses were collapsing into liquid rot. They had wounded (Jehan and one of the King's guards the worst, with a darkspawn dagger in his side in the one case and a thigh shredded by teeth in the other), but the wounds were treatable, and _there_ was another recommendation for having a mage with a fighting force. Kathil knew some healing magic, and she moved among them, looking for flesh that needed mending.

He was sitting with his back against a rock when she approached, and when he looked up he couldn't see much of an expression on her face. "Are you hurt, Cullen?"

"Not much. Just this." He held up his arm to show the shallow slice that parted the skin where his greaves hadn't protected him. "It's not bad, you don't have to—"

But she was crouching next to him, one hand clamped around his wrist and turning his arm to better catch the torchlight. "We've got more fighting to do. Quit arguing." And she muttered, and he could feel the Veil thin a little, and then she was running two fingers down the cut. It hurt, but it left warmth and lack of pain in its wake. "There. All better." She let go of him and started to get up.

For some reason, though, he felt himself move and then it was her wrist in his hand. And it was her turn to look wary, and he didn't blame her. _Maker, what am I __**doing**__?_ "You, um. You look tired."

"I _am_ tired, Cullen. Don't worry, I'm not going to do anything stupid and invite a demon to come take care of that for me. Some sleep will fix it." He was still hanging onto her wrist, and now she was starting to look confused. "What do you want?"

_I have no idea._ And he was starting to think that maybe he should let go of her before this got any more awkward—or she decided that she was tired of being held still. "I—this—this isn't your fault, Kathil. Me being here. It's my own decisions that brought me here. I just—" _Let go of her, Cullen. Let go before she __**makes**__ you let go. She's a mage and do you remember what she told us yesterday and oh Maker's sweet breath the way she __**fought**__ and she's been doing that for four years…_

She turned her arm in his hand so that her palm was pressed against his forearm, curling her long fingers around the place where she'd just healed him. Warmth spread into his skin from hers. "We've all made stupid decisions in our time. If you're not going to tell me what this is actually about, you should probably let me go, because I assure you that we _are_ being watched." The mage's dark eyes were intent on his face, her pale hair falling to hide the scarred side.

What he _wanted_ was to be twelve years old and ignorant of her existence again. Or to be fourteen and meeting her on the stairs at night, and not touching, _never_ touching, but still _close_ to her. Or to be twenty-one and certain that he was never going to see her again. But he was twenty-five and a Grey Warden and the intervening time had changed them both so much that what he wanted was probably his own innocence back.

Or _her_.

_I wish you had taken me with you, when you left._

And _that_ was the thought that made him let go.

Hurt flickered across her face as she got up. She stepped away silently, and he watched her go to the elf and reach out for him. Zevran pulled her into his arms, and the two of them spoke like that for a few minutes, embraced.

Cullen made himself turn away, turn his attention to cleaning his blade and armor of the blackening blood that encrusted both. He reached for _something_, some prayer, some discipline. "O Maker, hear my cry: guide me through the blackest nights, steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked, make me to rest in the warmest places. " The Canticle of Transfigurations had always been one of his favorite litanies, and there was still some comfort in the old words. "O Creator, see me kneel: For I walk only where You would bid me, stand only in places You have blessed, sing only the words You place in my throat."

_For I walk only where You would bid me._

_Steel my heart against the temptations of the wicked._

He found his blanket, wrapped himself in it, and tried to sleep.

*****

_Zevran:_

He rather enjoyed the looks he was getting from the rest of the Grey Wardens as he lay curled with his own Grey Warden, one arm draped over her, blankets pulled up to their chins. Disbelieving, as if they were not sure why he still drew breath and expected that to change at any moment. _How little they know,_ he thought, and raised his head to kiss the outer curve of her ear.

She made a little _mmm_ in her throat and turned a bit so her face was turned up to the sky. The clouds were clearing off, and there were stars glittering between them. "You should probably bed the poor boy and put him out of his misery," Zevran said, tickling her ear with his breath. "He would probably thank you for it. Eventually."

"Would that be before or after his mind breaks and he runs howling and naked off into the nearest darkspawn lair?" Her voice was light and sleepy, but there was a dark, savage emotion that lurked beneath it. "I should leave well enough alone, is what I should do. Get through the next few days and I'll never have to see him again."

"And is that truly what you want, my Grey Warden?" he asked her, and found himself curious as to her answer.

"Given my choice, I would probably bed him most _mercilessly_, Zev. You know that as well as I do." She opened her eyes, and he saw her blink up at the stars. "But I think Cullen is enough of a mess without my help, and I have enough trouble on my hands without borrowing any. And you are a _very_ wicked man," she said as she closed her eyes and his teeth grazed her skin. "You should stop that this instant, because I don't have the energy to get up right now and we have an audience."

"I am aware," he said. "It is why I do it, no?"

"Be careful," Kathil said, and though her tone was warning, it was also warm. "Or I'll take my blanket and go sleep with Lorn."

"Or perhaps a certain former Templar?" He chuckled low and nipped her ear again.

She snorted. "There are two of them here, and both of them are _trouble_. I really am tired, you know."

"Pity," he said. "A kiss, then, and I will content myself with that for the night."

Kathil turned in his arms, and kissed him, and on any other night the warmth that was born from that kiss would have been followed by an embrace, and the embrace followed by all kinds of the pleasures that two people could invent between each other. Tonight, however, she snuggled down into his arms and slipped into sleep within a few breaths.

It took him a while longer to sleep, listening to the sounds of armed men making camp, and Leliana's little snores from about three yards off. They had lived through another day, and had a morrow to claim. As always, it was more than enough.

*****

_Leliana:_

She didn't remember mornings coming _quite_ so early when she'd traveled with the Grey Wardens before, three years ago. In the Chantry, yes, they were up before sunrise so they could greet the dawn with the Chant of Light. But with the Wardens, sometimes the sun had been up for over an hour by the time they were finished with breaking camp.

Not so today. Fog was rolling in from the coast, extending silent fingers into the little canyon that they'd spent the night in, and the sky was only now beginning to pale with the promise of dawn. Alistair passed her a pair of bags, one of hard biscuits and the other of a mixture of dried beef and apples. She took a biscuit and a handful of the meat and fruit, and gave the bags back to him. "Do we have a plan?"

"Montclair seems to," he said. "It even seems sane. We move slowly and take out their scouting groups, and keep an eye out for landscape we can use to our advantage. When we hit the edge of the main group, we give them something to think about and then back off. Whittle them down as they follow. Still might end up surrounded and outnumbered, though." He appeared as if he didn't mind the thought that much.

"Not so different than a few years ago," she said after she swallowed her mouthful of biscuit. "This food is terrible, Alistair. Not that I expected much else, this being Ferelden."

"Rima hired an Orlesian cook at the palace." He smiled at her, and there was just something about that smile that put the soul at ease. There always had been, and from what she'd heard of his half-brother, Cailan had likely been the same way. "There are sauces. On _everything_. Right before I left, she had figured out how to put sauce on _soup_."

"It sounds delightful." Leliana swallowed the last of her biscuit. "Rima—your wife, yes? And did I hear something about an heir being born? "

"I—yes." Alistair's expression went from open to a little wary. "We named him after Duncan. It seemed only right."

"That is wonderful," she said, and was rewarded by a brightening of his expression. "I was planning on going to Denerim. I can visit and you can show him off, and then I will have to get to know this woman you married. What is she like?"

He shifted from one foot to the other, exactly like a little boy caught with his hand somewhere it shouldn't be. "She is…practical. Stubborn, sometimes. Very good at politics, which is good because I'm just _not_. She remembers faces, names, stories. She reminds me a little of you sometimes, actually."

There was something about how he said that, something that had been bothering her ever since she had spoken with him for the first time in three years, back in Seahold. Leliana glanced around; everyone around them was busy with their own tasks, packing away blankets and helping each other don armor. "And you love her, Alistair." He looked like he was about to object, and she smiled a little. "Don't deny it. It's a good thing, to love the person you married."

And now he looked _desperately_ uncomfortable. "It still feels…" He trailed off.

"Like betrayal? " She patted him on the shoulder. "Kathil is moving on. Don't be ashamed that you're doing the same. Wynne would scold you if she were here, you know. It looks like we're about to leave."

"And me without my armor on." He turned away, then turned back. "Thanks, Leliana."

She waved him off and went to get into her own light armor. The music of battle preparations surrounded her, low voices and the creak of leather, a crash and an oath as someone dropped a breastplate. The mist was warming to gold; beyond it somewhere, the sun was rising.

She hummed a tune under her breath, one Marjolaine had taught her in those days before everything had gone so very bad. Those memories still tasted green when she thought of them, like crushed mint or the smell of pines.

" _As I was a-walking all alone,  
I heard twa corbies making a moan;  
The one unto the t'other did say,  
'Where shall we go and dine to-day?'  
'In behind yon old turf dyke,  
I know there lies a new slain knight;  
And nobody knows that he lies there,  
But his hawk, and his hound, and lady fair..."_


	6. On What Wings Dare He Aspire

**Six: On What Wings Dare He Aspire**

_(Author's note: This is the chapter where it's going to be very useful to have read "Waking Hours" first. Also, violent and gory chapter is violent and gory. Be warned.)_

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* * *

  
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_Lorn:_

It is a _very_ good day.

First, Yvrenne (she who is a wonder among Mabari, whose name-smell is obsidian and blood and darkness) convinces her human to throw darkspawn bones for them to catch. And _that_ is a fine thing, since Yvrenne's mate Korus is asleep still. He thinks he could beat Korus, if it came to a fight, but Yvrenne has pups within her already and she will not tolerate that sort of behavior for some time to come. (But perhaps when the time does come, he will be nearby? And he has _such_ an admirable territory to show her.)

And then the humans are encasing themselves in metal and leather and those funny suits that smell faintly of dragon. The wind is blowing a little, and he can smell salt spray, and seagulls, and darkspawn.

He is beside his human, and today they will bite more darkspawn. The humans speak of that human thing _strategy_, how to pull off small groups of the large group ahead of them, how to cut the chosen few from the herd and run them down, how to hunt and how to kill. His human smells of lightning and lyrium so strongly, and Lorn is in _such _a good mood that he almost decides to forgive the knights who took his human away from him.

Almost.

One of those knights keeps on looking at his human, and when he does he smells like _prey_. Like rabbit things in holes. Like loamy earth and fear. He remembers this knight. He always before smelled like smoke and dust and metallic anger, and he defended Lorn's human once. His human _likes_ this knight, even though it's a different _like_ than she has for her elf, or for the singer, or even the other knight who used to be his human's mate.

Lorn wonders if a sharp bite or two would be enough to sort him out.

"Stop staring at Cullen, Lorn," his human mutters. "You're probably making him nervous. You're making _me_ nervous."

The dust-knight _started_ it. He pauses to kick up a dirt clod behind him disdainfully. The dust-knight should stop smelling so rabbity.

"And that is up to him," his human says. "I have a biscuit for you if you will just stop looking at him like you're considering whether or not he'd taste good, pup."

Lorn cocks his head. That is worth _two_ biscuits. And humans taste _terrible_.

"Fine. Two biscuits. We have a deal."

It is a _good_ day.

Then they find the edge of the group of darkspawn and there is flesh to rend and tear, and it is the first time in a long time that his pack has included other Mabari. This forest is thick, and the underbrush provides excellent cover (and rustles loudly when they are incautious). With three Mabari, they are _efficient._ There are several large horned things among the darkspawn. The humans call them _ogres_. They are not very well-armored, and the Mabari know well the necessity of hamstrings. Yvrenne distracts, and he and Korus each attach themselves to the back of a leg, ripping into muscle and tendon, and _down_ goes the great thing and one of the knights puts a sword through its neck while it howls.

They are backing steadily, making the darkspawn come to them. He returns to his human's side again and again, but the elf seems to have her well-guarded and he returns to the Mabari pack.

Then—

The ground under his feet begins to feel _familiar_.

And he does not know how it has happened.

There are territories that he and his human intruded on, when they were traveling alone. There is _trouble_ in those territories, and Lorn owns no fear but he might admit to a little _trepidation_ at the prospect of being back on that territory.

Ice and lightning and smoke and over it all the overwhelming dust smell of lyrium, and is it _possible_ that his human does not know that they have crossed into that strange place? He howls to clear a space around him and bounds up to the chest of a fallen ogre.

And—

Among the darkspawn are shadows.

Shadow.

_Big_ shadow—

Lorn is surrounded by darkspawn, they are _all_ surrounded by darkspawn, and a little ways off Yvrenne shrieks and falls, and Korus goes in, jaws clamped on the throat of the one who wielded the blade that felled her.

And Lorn leaps from the ogre's chest and into the fray, fighting towards his human.

*****

_Kathil:_

She ducked under a genlock's sword and sent a bolt of energy into its chest, the thing snarling as it fell. She heard Zevran mutter an curse in Antivan, turned a bit just in time to see him wrench his longer sword free from where it had gotten caught in a piece of armor. She could feel the pool of magic she had to draw on dwindling, and reached to draw her sword.

The world tilted beneath her feet.

_Maker's __**Breath,**__ what was that?_

The darkspawn had gotten behind them somehow. No surprise. The air was starting to take on a tingling, dreamlike feeling, and there were _things_ flickering in her peripheral vision that she knew from painful experience should never be ignored.

They were fighting on an old road.

And old roads meant nightmares.

She spread her hands, power rippling, stunning the darkspawn nearest her. She had a few seconds of respite, and now looked around, trying to locate the sources of the flickers.

Not sources. _Source._

A body hit her from behind, and she stumbled forward. It was Jehan, a hurlock on top of him and out of nowhere Zevran was there and sinking his short blade into the back of the darkspawn's neck. Kathil kicked the body off of Jehan. "You all right?"

The Grey Warden grimaced as he sat up. He had a pair of arrows sprouting from his shoulder. "Been better. I'll live."

"Good." She turned her attention to Zevran. "We're on an old road, and there's a nightmare here. Try to keep the darkspawn off of me. They'll have a hard time hitting me, but it's distracting." She only saw him nod, just barely, and then she was pulling the Veil around herself, stepping through partially into the Fade.

Old roads were strange places. Her vision was doubled, seeing at once the ancient trees of the Lost River and the twisted stone spires of the dream world. The Black City hung in the air, far off, in a sky that was once the endless no-color of the Fade and a mist-strewn blue. She could see the fights moving, darkspawn dripping hunger off of them like black rainwater.

And the nightmare.

Each of them were different. This one was tall as an ogre, its neck long and its head vaguely dragonish. It crouched on powerful hindlimbs and braced itself with a slender pair of forelimbs. There were other pairs of limbs, two sprouting from its back, two from its front, those limbs ending in what might be called hands equipped with glistening talons.

Its eyes were burning green, without pupil, and there was an undeniable _intelligence_ about it as it cocked its head and considered the battle around it. Then it darted a pair of forelimbs _through_ the Veil and casually ripped a genlock in half.

She dropped to one knee, almost absently noting the arrow that whistled past her ear. She put a hand to the earth, at once dusty stone and squelching mud. _Is there anyone home?_

No reply but a sharp resentment that came from the old road itself. _Thou. I have not made a welcome of thee. Thou art ill-come. Thou art __**misplaced**__._

"Sorry." No help coming, then. The old road was empty of gods, for the moment. _Wynne, if you can hear me, I can use some help._

No response there, either. The nightmare moved silently, turning towards her, and she could see the dark armor on it flaring and fading in the flat light. The worst thing about them was that alien intelligence, and the certain knowledge that if she understood anything about them, it was that they considered things from the other side of the Veil fun to kill. And that it took a mage thinning the barrier that kept them safely within the Fade to allow them access to those things, even on an old road.

And there was so _much_ she cared about just on the other side of the Veil from here.

"Well," she said, placing one foot behind her and twisting it sideways in the dust. "Shall we do this, then?"

It gaped its mouth open slightly, displaying serrated teeth, then came flowing forward, so graceful and moving so deceptively _fast._

She sidestepped, vanishing from where she had been and reappearing at its side, ducking a swipe from a clawed limb, and her sword made a _scree_ on the armor on its side. The nightmare wheeled and she vanished again. _Maker, if I cannot be good at least let me be lucky—_

Kathil was fighting a losing battle now, because the thing was enormous and intelligent, and it was faster and stronger than she was, and she had magic on her side but that was _all_. She drew on every desperate trick she had learned on the old roads—the sidestep, the unseeing, playing tricks with the waters of the Fade, all of it, and it was not enough. It slashed at her, playing with her, once opening a large wound on her shoulder with only one tooth, neatly slicing the strap that held her cuirass in place on that side and punching through the mail beneath.

Horribly, the nightmare only seemed to be partially distracted by her. It still occasionally reached through the Veil to grab the living things on the other side. She saw hurlocks and shrieks screaming in its grasp, once a Mabari _(Andraste in your mercy let that not be Lorn)_, and once a figure she did not recognize but that was human, had been human until the claws had gotten to it, and now was just a shredded torso and places where legs and head had once been.

She felt pressures on her mind, and dashed sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes to see that the large nightmare had been joined by smaller ones, shifting hungrily around the edge of the battle. And beyond them, the demons.

If she fell here, one of them would become her.

She was bleeding, and though she was healing herself it was too little, too late, too slow. Her right arm hung useless, and she was fighting off-handed. The nightmare gathered itself, and then paused, tilting its head almost quizzically like a bird, like Lorn when he thought he saw a rabbit.

Something had changed.

Very carefully, Kathil turned her head and looked over her shoulder, then made a strangled sound. A very familiar figure stood about fifteen feet behind her.

"_Wynne?_"

"Hold still." That was her voice all right, sweet and full of steel. Wynne was suddenly _there_, embracing her from behind, and this wasn't real because Wynne was dead and had been for years, but her scent was overwhelming Kathil. She still might be a demon. This might be a trick.

_I'm so tired of fighting shadows._

The air around them was taking on a shimmering light. "Dear child. You have done so much wrong in your life, haven't you?" And that was Wynne, but _not_ Wynne. The magic that was surrounding them _felt_ like her, soft as snowfall with a glacier of strength at its core.

Not Wynne.

The spirit that had saved Wynne's life.

And like a candle carried by a mother, like the touch of a father's hand on a fevered brow, like the embrace of a sister, like the smile of a brother, her power banished nightmares.

Kathil blinked, and the nightmare was gone. "They are drawn to what is like them," Wynne said in her ear, and abruptly she too was gone.

The Veil bowed and reached to retake her. She allowed it, and when she reached the other side, the first thing she noticed was silence. It always took her a moment to reorient when she came out of the Fade shroud, and she waited patiently for the scene before her to reassemble itself into some coherent order.

"_Maleficar_."

Just the one word, the one hissed word and there was a great pain carving itself through the lower part of her chest, a hand on her shoulder yanking her backwards _into_ that pain, and that had been _Montclair's_ voice—

She was falling forward, her knees buckling, a great uncomprehending stillness in her, and she _should_ catch herself but nothing was working. The silence was replaced by howling, screaming, shouting and then—

Nothing.

*****

_Zevran:_

He followed Kathil, killing darkspawn as he went. He had seen the shimmering Fade shroud before, one of her standard tactics when she ran low on power to cast spells. But he had only seen such shadows on a battlefield once before.

The Harrowing Chamber, the master assassin, and Kathil battling shadows that reached for him with claws altogether _too_ real, all of that he remembered. He had not remembered the shadows being quite so _large_, though. And he did not remember fighting the shadows taking quite so long_._

What had she said? _The nightmares follow me on the old roads._

He was no mage, and she had gone where he could not follow. He could kill the darkspawn who were trying to mob them both, though. He saw Alistair nearby, fighting back to back with one of the Grey Wardens, and beside him a shriek fell and Cullen stepped into its place. He nodded at the Grey Warden and they fell into a rhythm together, both of them dripping with gore, the footing turning treacherous beneath their feet.

Then something had changed.

A diffuse light had begun to glow from the place where he could see Kathil's outlined form, and the shadow beyond her. She had stopped moving, and on the battlefield a silence was falling, as even the darkspawn turned their heads to look. The light grew brighter, surrounding his Grey Warden, and he saw her sword lower as the shadow in front of her flinched back, then gathered itself and vanished.

Heartbeats passed.

She was suddenly there, all the way real, light coruscating over her skin and vanishing. As she looked around her with a questioning stare, there was light still coming from her eyes and mouth, dripping from her fingertips.

They were all staring at the mage. None of them thought to keep an eye out behind her—that space _had_ been empty, a moment before. Montclair was there, now.

Time began again.

The Warden-General snarled, and before any of them could move he was hissing a word and his sword was driving through Kathil, his hand on her shoulder pulling her back onto his blade. She looked startled, and the light that was dripping from her faded abruptly. She fell forward, her body sliding off the blade, landing face-first in the blood-churned muck.

Zevran went low. Cullen went high.

His blades ripped into the place where two pieces of plate overlapped on Montclair's back, and over his head Cullen swept his sword through the air. Zevran saw Montclair's head go bouncing away and come to rest against the body of an ogre. Montclair's body, abruptly bereft of life, fell to one side.

The darkspawn were quitting the field, what was left of them. Zevran dropped to his knees and pulled on Kathil's shoulder, rolling her over. The blood that spread over her armor was the bright color of fast-approaching death. The sword had gone right through her armor on both sides of her body. With a hand at her neck, he felt for her pulse—it was thin and irregular, but it was still there, and that was all that mattered at the moment.

His hands found the buckles at the side of her armor. "Undo the shoulders," he said to Cullen, who was still there though Zevran did not spare a glance for what he might be doing. "We must get the cuirass off of her." _And see what we are dealing with, and whether she might still be saved._

Cullen fumbled with the shoulder buckle, and then the cuirass was coming free and Zevran was pushing aside the mail underneath and lifting her shirt, using the fabric to try and wipe away some of the worst of the blood. The wound was a handspan wide, a hand's length beneath her right breast, and he could see it bubble slightly when she tried to inhale. It was a wound that Wynne would have healed easily. Even Kathil, if she'd been able, could have at least repaired it enough so that her life was not in immediate danger.

There were others around him, and someone shoved a vial into his hand, and _this_ at least was familiar. The contents of the vial went into the wound, then another.

It stopped bubbling, and the blood coming from it dimmed in color slightly.

The pulse at her neck was still weak, but it had resumed a regular rhythm. She would not die in the next few minutes at least. He looked up to see that they were surrounded. Cullen was by Kathil's head, kneeling, with the _oddest_ expression on his face. Lorn, Alistair, and Leliana were also there, but facing outward, and the Orlesian Grey Wardens were beyond them.

Lorn was giving a low growl, different than his usual grumbling warning. Alistair shifted, and said, "Does anyone _else_ feel like having a whack at our mage? Because this may get ugly, if so." There was no edge of amusement in his voice whatsoever.

There was a moment of stillness on the battlefield, all of them coated in blood and sweat, the reeking bodies nearest them falling into rot, and the wind from the sea rising. Then one of the Grey Wardens spoke. It was Laurens, Montclair's second. "Stand down, Wardens. All of us. We have dead and wounded, and this is not the time or the place."

The tension eased, just a bit. Then there was post-battle work, carrying those who were dead or could not walk off the field, setting up camp nearby in a copse of enormous trees. Including Montclair, four Grey Wardens had fallen, and they could not find any trace of the oldest, Raoulin. Alistair had lost eight out of twenty guards. Lorn was favoring his left front paw and otherwise was mostly unhurt, but one of the other Mabari was dead and the other was gravely wounded. Zevran himself had gathered a nice collection of cuts. Nothing he had not survived before.

They laid Kathil near the fire on a thick pad of blankets. Lorn settled down beside her, pressing himself into her unwounded side, and refused to move even when tempted by biscuits.

And just because the Maker had a sense of humor, there was a storm blowing in from the north.

*****

_Alistair:_

This was not how he'd imagined the day ending.

"You're going to tell me why Montclair decided to try to murder Kathil," he said to Laurens. The Grey Warden facing him was a narrowly built man with a scruffy beard and, right now, a look about him that suggested that he was quite uncomfortable. The rain was beginning to sheet down, chill sneaking into the seam between Alistair's cloak and his hood, and he was having trouble remembering that he was not actually _supposed_ to hit Laurens.

"None of us have ever seen that sort of magic before," Laurens replied, his voice reluctant. "And that light—I can imagine what he was thinking. I thought it too. If a demon had stepped into her body…"

He narrowed his eyes. "You people don't _fight_ with mages. How are you supposed to know whether a kind of magic you'd never seen before is forbidden?"

There was a figure at his elbow. "I believe I can shed a little light, Alistair." That was Leliana's voice. The bard pulled her hood back, letting the rain fall on her hair. "I spent some time in the court at Orlais recently. The Grey Wardens _claim_ to be politically neutral, yes? But there was one noble lady, one of the Empress's close friends—you might say, a _bosom_ companion—who was often writing letters to a certain Warden-General. And you have not heard the talk, Alistair. The Orlesians are worried about the mage who killed the Archdemon and disappeared, and about the new King who is still something of an unknown quantity. Ferelden has never attempted to invade another country, but should it decide to…Orlais is the natural first target, yes?"

There was a thick, choking anger in him. He called on all the discipline he owned to stay still. "You're telling me that Montclair was told to _assassinate_ Kathil?"

"He was told no such thing," Laurens said. "But there were rumors, and…if she were found to be a maleficar and executed, it would have made things easier. When we heard that she had resurfaced and returned to the Tower, we contacted the Knight Commander in the Tower. Your Templars wouldn't touch her. And we still did not know how she had survived the Archdemon's death. We could _not_ have her walking around the world if by some accident or deliberate action she had managed to keep the essence of the darkspawn."

"Then you heard she was traveling to Seahold." It was all suddenly making _sense_. "So Montclair decided to hold a court martial."

"Then Raoulin felt the darkspawn nearby, and there was a suggestion that you and Kathil might help us fight them. Montclair thought it might be a chance to let her show what she truly was." Laurens shrugged. "I will not lie to you, your Majesty. I would have done the same thing, in his place. Do you really not understand how dangerous she is?"

"Oh, I _understand_, all right." He let the growl in his voice surface. "I _understand_ that if I wanted a figurehead to lead us to battle against the world, she would do nicely, even though I would have to be insane to try that. I _understand_ that she's a mage and mages scare the water out of everyone—"

There was a hand on his arm. Leliana looked at him and shook her head. "You do not know her, Laurens," she said, her voice quiet but carrying over the patter of rain around them. "There are few enough Grey Wardens in the world at the moment. Why have you decided to make an enemy of one of your own?"

Laurens' mouth worked for a moment. "She is something…unknown. The Grey Wardens know how our fight is supposed to go. How everything should work. She is an exception."

Alistair, watching the man, almost felt a little sorry for him. "You're right. She's _our_ exception. And, exception or not, in less than thirty years she will be walking into the Deep Roads."

The man raised an eyebrow. "Will she?"

And _there_ it was. That fear. _You don't know the half of it._ "If I have to tie her up and carry her into Orzammar myself," he said. "It won't come to that, but you can have my vow on it, if you want."

"I believe you, your Majesty." Maker's balls, he _hated_ it when people called him that. "I will be reporting that to Weisshaupt, when I send a messenger."

"Good. Now. We should probably talk about how we're getting back to Seahold." And they were talking about easier subjects, and he would have thought the matter was closed, if it weren't for the strange expression in Leliana's eyes.

*****

_Cullen:_

Raoulin was gone.

Nobody was talking about it.

Nobody was talking about _anything_, except for Laurens and the King having a quiet confrontation at the edge of the camp. They were bandaging wounds and passing around food in silence, making trips by twos and threes to a nearby stream so they could wash their hands and faces (though the rain was falling in great drops now, the clouds above flickering with lightning, and you'd think that the rain would be enough to wash all of the blood away).

(But he did not think there was enough rain in all the Maker's skies to wash _this_ away.)

He tried to make conversation with Jehan, who had lost two fingers from his left hand, but Jehan just shook his head, waving him away. Nobody else among the Wardens would talk to him. He thought about approaching the small group clustered around Kathil, but stepping in their direction made something painful twist inside of him, the hollow knowledge that he'd made a choice out there on the battlefield, and that choice might well render him unwelcome in _any_ company.

He finally found a slightly less damp spot under one of the large trees, the rough bark trying to scratch him through his shirt. Their torches weren't proof against the wind and the rain, so everyone was a shadow against darkness, illuminated only by lightning and then for such a brief instant that it was difficult to make sense of the scene before darkness laid over them once again.

He was a Templar who had defended a mage from the Chantry. A Grey Warden who had killed his commander. Was there any farther he could possibly fall?

Cullen didn't think anyone was going to get any sleep tonight, except the unconscious.

His hand searched for and found the small pouch of dust he wore under his shirt. He opened it slightly, touched his finger to the contents. Then he placed the dust—just a few grains—on his tongue, and swallowed.

The lyrium burned like ice and knives going down his throat.

He pulled his hood down low over his face and waited for morning to come.


	7. Could Twist the Sinews of Thy Heart

**Seven: Could Twist the Sinews of Thy Heart**

**

* * *

  
**

_Lead me now  
I understand  
Faith is both the prison  
and the open hand.  
--Vienna Teng, "Augustine"_

_

* * *

  
_

_Leliana:_

They were a pathetic excuse for a victory march.

The music among them was sour, muttered, quiet. They carried litters between moss-hung larches, their feet quiet on the loam of the road. When the bards wrote songs of adventure, they always left out the walking, and the rain.

They stopped when dusk fell and the rain slackened to mist, coaxed fire from sodden wood. Kathil had not yet wakened, and she was feverish. "Go eat," Leliana told Zevran. "I will watch her for the moment. Bring back something for Lorn." The warhound refused to leave his human, and even now lay pressed against her unwounded side, his head on his front paws.

Zevran looked like he wanted to argue, and at the very least he should have said something about them sharing the great pleasure of watching the mage. Instead, he turned away, and though he still held himself with that practiced nonchalance, his back was stiff and his hands not nearly so graceful as usual.

She sat down and put Kathil's head on her lap. There were bright spots of fever burning on her cheeks. "Dearest, you have us all worried," Leliana murmured. She brushed pale hair back from the mage's forehead, and traced her fingers down the scar that ran from the hairline by her ear and past the corner of her mouth. Chapped lips, deep rings under her eyes almost bruiselike against her pallor, the flesh melting away from her sharp bones. She looked so small, and so lost. "You need to come back to us."

_Else my return may have been for nothing, and my vision proven false._

Kathil's slack mouth tightened. The small lines at the corners of her eyes deepened. "Sssh," Leliana said as she saw the mage trying to wake, her throat working. "It's all right. Just follow my voice."

Blonde eyelashes twitched, and Kathil's whole body shuddered. Her eyes opened slowly. "Lei—?"

"It's me." Leliana touched the side of Kathil's face again, and in response the muscles of the mage's cheek shivered and twitched. "Yes, you're alive."

Beside Kathil, Lorn's stubby tail was wagging so hard that is seemed likely to come off, and he nudged his human's side, gently. She was _awake!_ No more chasing the bunnies wherever she had been. It was time to chase the bunnies _here._

"Hurts…too much to be dead. Oh, _Lorn._ Happy to see you too. Zev—where?"

"Around, dearest. Quiet, now. He'll be back soon. Lorn is hurt but he'll be fine, Alistair is himself as always, and we've all been very worried about you. Just rest."

Kathil closed her eyes. "Don't tell me what happened yet. Don't want to know. Cold…" Her features smoothed and she slipped under the surface of sleep. Leliana kept on petting the elf-locked hair under her fingers, twisted and matted by sweat and blood. Zevran returned a few minutes later, with half a rabbit for Lorn courtesy of Emris, who had talked a pair of the unwounded guards into hunting for his wounded Mabari and had thought to save some for Lorn.

"She woke briefly," Leliana said as she moved, sitting Kathil up briefly so that Zevran could replace her. "She asked after you."

The elf looked down at Kathil's face, and touched her forehead with his hand. "Perhaps we will not lose her after all, then."

In that statement, instead of _we_ Leliana heard _I_.

She left them alone and went to tell Alistair that Kathil had wakened. As she walked past the fires, she saw Cullen sitting alone, watching her. She paused and walked over to him, dropping to her heels next to him. "She woke," Leliana told him. "She's not out of trouble yet, but she's stronger than she looks."

There was a brief look of wild relief on the former Templar's face. Then he turned his face away from her as if she'd slapped him. "I'm glad," he said, but that was not happiness she heard in his voice.

She waited for a moment to see if there was anything else he wished to say, then shrugged and got up. She could probably pry Cullen's secrets out of him, but like everyone else, she was tired and cold and it just seemed like too much work. Alistair would be easier to deal with.

*****

_Kathil:_

She suspected something terrible had happened. Something terrible aside from the pain that dogged her down into sleep, that made her breath come in short, uneven gasps. She felt so _strange_. When she woke, she asked, and the answers made no _sense._ Montclair? Tried to kill her and now was dead himself? Four Wardens dead, one missing, eight of Alistair's men dead, one of the Mabari?

_Why am I not dead?_

She remembered snowfall, so soft…

She slipped in and out of consciousness, pulled down into the Fade when her body hurt too much to hold on to. Zevran was there, holding her hand, touching her face, and there were other hands as well, Leliana's thin, strong fingers, Alistair with his sword calluses and familiar warmth. Lorn lay by her side, warming her.

Someone was missing, but she couldn't think, couldn't figure out who.

She didn't know how long it had been since the battle. She woke again, but this time instead of swaying the way it did when she was being carried in a litter, the world was shaking. There was a loud, constant rumble, squeaks and clips and clops and the scene resolved. She was lying in a wagon bed that smelled of wood sap and dusty hay. The world shivered around the edges and resolved. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a knee she thought she recognized. "Zev? Why are we in a wagon?"

"Seahold came looking for us, little bird," he said as he abandoned his perch on the side of the wagon and came to sink down next to her. "We are almost there. I can see the towers. Some of the Wardens have been sent ahead to fetch what they have for healers here."

She reached a hand towards him and then stopped, startled. "It doesn't hurt so much now."

"Your fever broke, I am told." He smiled at her. "Which is good, because fair Leliana was preparing to give you _quite_ the scolding if you kept on trying to die, yes?"

"Maker forbid." She took a breath, carefully. It was easier to draw breath now, though not precisely comfortable. Zevran took her hand, holding it between both of his. "How long has it been since…"

"Four days. It is nearly dusk, but we will spend this night within walls. And then we should be away, my Grey Warden, as soon as you are fit to travel."

The way he said that… "There's trouble with the other Wardens?"

Zevran looked away. "They speak of executing Cullen."

Cullen. Oh, Maker, _Cullen. _"What? _Why_?"

"I was fighting back to back with him when Montclair elected to spit you like a Wintersend goose." The elf was sitting very still now. "We rather definitively dealt with him. There is some argument over who dealt the killing blow, but…" He shrugged with one shoulder. "Cullen struck Montclair's head from his shoulders. I gather that there is not much else to be done with him."

Kathil closed her eyes. The pain in her chest was not limited to the place where she could feel healing flesh rubbing against itself. "When do they decide?"

"Tomorrow morning." She felt Zevran's fingers tracing down the side of her face. "Little bird…" His voice trailed off. "Ah. I see the healers approaching."

Soon afterwards, her bandages were being removed. She was still lying in the wagon bed, her chest being probed by a young woman who seemed somewhat annoyed at something. Perhaps at the wound, perhaps at Kathil's temerity to either take the wound or survive it. "Only a little sour, and your lung sounds clear enough," the healer said. "You'll live until we get into the castle and to my supplies. Those _Wardens_, coming in and not even giving me a chance to gather _anything._ You'll do, though. Looks like you've survived some worse."

Kathil peered up at the woman. She seemed very—small. _(She's a dwarf, have you had all the sense knocked out of your head?)_ And she looked oddly familiar.

_("Your father is going to be the death of me.")_

The healer was getting up to leave. Kathil caught her wrist before she could get away. "This might seem like a strange question—but do you know a woman named Shesen?"

The young woman barked a laugh. "Know her? She's been my ma all my days. Served at Seahold all of hers."

"Would you do me a favor?" The healer, wary, nodded. "Ask her if she remembers a little girl named Kathil. I promise I will cooperate with whatever you tell me to do and whatever awful things you are going to make me drink if you do that one thing for me."

"I would," Zevran added, and there was that lazy, dangerous note in his voice once more. "She is _most_ stubborn, no? Always trying to run away half-healed."

The healer shook off Kathil's hand. "I'll think about it." And then she was gone, hopping off the back of the wagon, and Kathil could hear her voice as she demanded that someone tell her _exactly_ how the Mabari had gotten hurt.

Kathil sought and held Zevran's gaze with her own. Then he bent forward and placed his warm lips against her brow. "To the Black City, my Grey Warden," he murmured only barely loud enough for her to hear. "And beyond."

She slipped one hand up into his hair, resting it against the back of his neck. Then she brought his mouth down so she could kiss him.

They passed through the bailey and into Seahold, and darkness fell over the hold and the Waking Sea beyond.

*****

_Cullen:_

Even in his first days in the Tower, and his first few days as a Grey Warden, Cullen could not remember feeling quite so alone.

The Grey Wardens would not speak to him, even Jehan who he had counted as a friend. He'd had to overhear the word of what had happened to Raoulin—that the Grey Warden had followed the last of the darkspawn back to their lair and likely entered the Deep Roads, going to his death in one last battle.

He saw muttered conferences between Laurens and Anthoine, dark looks cast at him by the rest of the Orlesians. He tried not to see, tried not to hear or to speculate what they might be discussing. He was afraid he knew.

Then the force from Seahold had come with wagons and horses, and the hold loomed large before them. The trip back had taken forever, but it was done now and he was escorted into a small room, and Anthoine asked him to surrender all of his weapons.

It was not a jail cell, at least. There were a few small mercies left in this world.

He was bone-deep exhausted, but sleep did not come easily. He'd seen the dwarven healer come out that afternoon, riding pillion on Laurens' horse, and had been near enough to hear her pronounce Kathil on the mend. He'd also heard her ask that puzzling question of the healer, and then remembered—her family. Her family was here.

He wished her luck with them.

He knew what tomorrow held. And when it ended—when they made an end of _him_—at least there would no longer be this struggle, this sense that he was on the wrong path entirely. He didn't know _where_ he belonged. It was just that it wasn't _here_. That sense of something having gone terribly wrong, something he could not put right even if he tried…he was so tired of it. After killing Montclair, after four days spent in silence and worry and grief over all they'd lost, it was almost good to be at an end.

It was the third time in his life he'd sat sleepless, waiting for someone to come along and kill him. First the Tower, and the demons who wore her face and the sweet promises they'd made him, which he had resisted because he was a Templar and she was dead and somehow their appeals to him were _wrong_, even though they did pull at a part of him he'd always tried to ignore.

Second in the Tower again, and that time the demons had been of his own creation, of self-recrimination and loathing of his own idiocy.

Third time now, and there were no demons at all. Just this strange acknowledgment that all of his fighting hadn't been quite enough, that he knew the shape of what he needed to become but not really _what, how_ or even, Maker, _why_.

There was a little window in this room, and the light outside had gone grey and then a paler grey. Then Anthoine came to get him.

He barely remembered the long walk to the hall where they'd held the court martial, several lifetimes ago. Then he was there, and the Grey Wardens assembled seemed such a _small_ group compared to the one they had come with, and Laurens had a face that might have been carved out of the cliff for all the expression it had on it. Cullen answered questions put to him, not trying to defend himself. Yes, he had struck off Montclair's head. No, he had not planned it. No, he was not in the employ of the Grey Warden Kathil, nor the elf Zevran.

Laurens paused, a confused and suspicious look on his face. He wasn't looking at Cullen. Belatedly, Cullen realized that the double doors behind him were open—why hadn't they been barred?—and there was a familiar ticking sound of Mabari nails on stone, and behind _that_ more familiar footsteps.

Laurens rose. His voice was even and measured. "What is the meaning of this?"

When Cullen turned, what he saw at first made no sense. Kathil was there, leaning on Zevran's arm, but instead of clothing or armor she was wearing _robes_. Mage robes, to be exact, richly patterned with a wide band around her midriff in a contrasting blue, her pale hair braided. Lorn was sitting in front of her, and behind her were the King and Leliana.

Then she said the words that made his blood freeze.

"I've come to give you a very good reason that you may not execute Cullen."

*****

_Kathil:_

This had _seemed_ like such a good idea, when she'd come up with it last night.

She'd been lying awake, thinking about Cullen, thinking about everything that seemed strange and wrong and broken between them, thinking about how they both had been pounding on what seemed like an immovable barrier with their fists, trying to find a way to put this _right_. It wasn't just this latest incident, it was everything, like they were supposed to be something to one another but there weren't words for what it was.

Everything was all bound together, her, Cullen, Alistair, Zevran, even Leliana who had said _you are right, Kathil, you can't let him die_ in that way she had sometimes that Kathil never liked to think about too closely. There was a shape things needed to be, and she remembered Cullen grabbing her wrist, driven by what she couldn't say but she thought it might be the same thing that drove her now, drove her to put on the long-neglected mage robes she'd stashed at the bottom of her pack, drove her out of bed over the protests of the healer named Verity, Shesen's daughter. And really, Verity had the right of it because she was short of breath and her chest was aching like fire.

_Focus._

Laurens was staring at her as if she'd sprouted a second head from one shoulder. Perhaps _both_ shoulders. "And why would that be?" Montclair's second asked.

She breathed in. "Because I find myself in need of a Templar, gentlemen, and you're about to execute the particular one I need."

The Grey Wardens looked between each other, and the aura of uneasiness that spilled over them was almost palpable. "And why would a _mage_ claim that she needs a Templar? Unless you plan on turning into an abomination in the next few minutes." Laurens was standing straight, facing her head-on.

She tightened her hand on Zevran's arm, and he shifted slightly towards her, bringing her shoulder into contact with his. She was glad, more than she could ever say, for that support, that small thing that meant everything. If she were to save Cullen's life, she was going to have to change how these people thought about mages and Templars.

_Because I give myself all the _easy_ work._

"Tell me, _gentlemen_. What does a Templar do?" More uneasiness. "It wasn't a rhetorical question, Wardens. Does anyone have an answer?"

It was Jehan who finally spoke up. "They hunt and kill apostates and maleficars. And abominations."

"Ah, someone's found their tongue." She glanced at Cullen, and saw him looking at her as if thinking she might be an apparition, as if he might already be dead and dreaming this on his way through the Fade. "So. _How_ do they hunt those who misuse their magic? How do they walk into battle against a mage, and know they will win?"

More silence. The answer finally came from behind her, from Alistair. "The cleansing. Templars can banish the power of mages, and without their powers mages are—_usually _—rather helpless."

"Thank you, Alistair. Is everyone familiar with the cleansing?" Nods all around. Laurens was starting to turn a bit red, but he didn't seem likely to interrupt her yet. _Sweet Andraste, thank you for it being him rather than Montclair._ Alistair had told Kathil this morning that Montclair's sister had been killed by an abomination. It was likely why he had acted as he had, and it would have made him impossible to deal with here. And she knew she was dancing on frighteningly thin ice. _Just keep acting like you have every right in the world to be here and lecture them like children._ "Does anyone know _how_ the cleansing works? Jehan?"

The young Grey Warden shook his head, raising his bandaged hand to touch his mouth. He glanced down and looked startled, as if every time he saw his hand he realized anew that part of it was gone. "No one has ever said. A Templar secret."

Cullen cleared his throat. "The—the Veil. We purge the mage's power, and harden the Veil so they cannot draw more."

There were widened eyes all around, murmurs chasing mutters around the room. She quelled the nervous tremble in her gut, reminded herself that she had stood like this at the Landsmeet, stood and told people who had no reason to believe her that the Hero of River Dane was a traitor.

"Mages tear the Veil, Wardens. _Templars repair it_. We are two sides of the same power. The Chantry places them in watch over us, as a threat—our power can be taken from us, our lives taken, at any moment. It teaches the Templars that we are a danger to ourselves and others, and it is not far wrong in that. But what it does _not_ teach them is that there are other applications for their talents. A Templar, properly trained, could sense the first signs of a spell gone wrong, watch the mages for signs that their focus is slipping, and _prevent_ abominations from ever happening with a timely application of the cleansing."

Alistair had looked so surprised when Zevran had dragged him into their room last night, as she'd asked her questions in an urgent voice, the words tumbling out of her. And when he was done answering, she'd had this mad idea that felt so very _right_.

She paused, her breath hitching, remembering the Tower and the blood on the walls, the _things_ the mages had become. "They could prevent abominations not by killing us at the first sign, but by sealing the Veil when the power begins to go wrong. And _only_ when all else fails, by showing us mercy. I would argue that the Circle was broken long before the blood mages acted. The Templars should be our brothers, our fathers, our sons. Not our enemies."

Laurens's narrow nostrils flared. "And what does this have to do with Cullen?"

She tightened her hand on Zevran's arm again and let go, stepping forward. Every eye was on her, and she willed herself to stand straight, to not stagger under that weight. "Cullen is my Templar, Laurens. He has been my Templar since we met as children. He is the one who stood at my Harrowing. Every time he has transgressed, it's been because he was protecting me. He stood against Greagoir because he _knew_ that I had no demon in me. He killed Montclair because his first charge is to protect his mage from forces both within and without."

She turned to Cullen. "Or do you disagree?"

*****

_Cullen:_

Everything was falling into place.

Everything twisted, broken, out of place, her words made _sense_ of it, and there was such _relief_ in him. Of _course_. Of _course_ this was exactly where he belonged, the path he was supposed to be on. He had fought for so long, trying to find his way to the place he was supposed to _be_, trying to find a place where the shape of his life and his soul fit.

_Cullen is __**my**__ Templar._

And she was looking at him with those dark eyes, and in them the waters of the Fade moved, and he _knew_ those waters and he knew her. Knew her great power, and the great price it demanded, and her deep and aching _need_ for someone who would know when that price was about to destroy her.

He straightened his shoulders. "I do not disagree," he said. He turned his face towards the Grey Wardens who stood in judgment over him.

Silence.

*****

_Kathil:_

She had not been expecting the profound relief on Cullen's face.

Had not been expecting it to be mirrored in herself.

And had not expected the stunning, startling realization that _this_ was why she had ended up together with Alistair. He had been sweet, funny, shy, _wonderful_…and a Templar, or at least as much of a one as she could find. Yes, she loved him, but something in her had also responded to what he was, the hope that if the worst happened he could keep her _safe_.

In a way, she also loved Cullen, though it wasn't nearly the same thing. What was the same was that he was _hers_. It was different, and the same, and no less profound for its difference.

And _now_ she needed to finish the job of saving Cullen's life because she didn't think she was going to be able to bear losing him.

"Gentlemen," she said, and she willed her voice not to falter. "I believe that the charge has been made that I am a dangerous woman with fell powers. Even if that is something the Grey Wardens supposedly do not care about, you have still tried to use those accusations as an excuse to execute me. It would be _quite_ prudent to change the punishment for what Cullen has done—and I will remind you that Montclair struck me with little provocation other than not understanding magic he had never encountered before—to life in the service of a Grey Warden. In my service, in the service of the Circle of Magi, in the service of the Second Enchanter of that Circle." She fought not to curl her hands into fists. "If you worry that the power of the Archdemon still touches me, then there is no better safeguard."

Now it depended on Laurens. _Don't make me force you to let him go,_ she told him silently, lifting her chin. _I will regret doing it, and Alistair will regret what it does to Ferelden's relationship with Orlais and the rebuilding of the Grey Wardens here, but I will kill __**all**__ of you if I have to._

The General's second shifted, and Kathil could see that he saw the threat in her eyes. "It seems I have little choice. But I have a question for you. Cullen has shown questionable judgment in regard to you. Do you believe that he would do what must be done, if you fail your focus?"

Kathil glanced at Cullen. She kept her voice low, and soft. "If the need comes he will show me mercy. Just as Archon Valerius did for Andraste."

Her faith in that statement surprised her, as well as the comfort that it brought.

Laurens let out a sharp breath. "Let it be done, then. Grey Warden Cullen, do you swear your service to the Grey Warden Kathil, to live your life in expiation of your crimes?"

Cullen didn't even glance at Laurens. Instead he was looking at Kathil. "I swear," he said, and ah, his voice held such _absolute_ surety. "I swear on my life and my hope of the Maker's forgiveness."

"Fine, then," Laurens said. "Grey Warden Kathil, Cullen is now your problem. We wash our hands of him. But know if we discover that we have been misled, there will be nowhere in the world you can hide yourself from us."

But the threat was hollow, and Cullen was moving and she was throwing her arms around him, laughing, her heart breaking and mending all in the same moment.

*****

_Lorn:_

The dust-knight has stopped smelling rabbity.

And his human is _happy_, happy like she was before they left their territory and came to this place. She smells _good_, and her elf smells of leather and stone, and all is _well_. There is a woman who smells of herbs and dark loam who makes his human stay in her bed (the words for what she is are _dwarf_ and _healer_, which surprises Lorn because _healer_ was also the word for the mage that Lorn has not seen in such a long time and perhaps he has been mistaken about what it means? This one smells nothing like her) and even though she grumbles she lets Lorn stay too.

The singer finds bones for him, and sings songs to him that make such odd pictures in his head. The knight who Lorn has begun to think of as the _other_ knight, the knight who used to be Lorn's human's mate, he spends time talking to a woman who everyone calls a _Bann _but he always stops to scratch Lorn's ears.

Lorn spends his days with his human and his nights (because his human's elf joins her in bed at night again and there is something called _privacy_ that his human likes to insist on when she is together with her mate) roaming the halls of this damp salt-smelling stone place. The metal-encased humans who took his human away from him have departed, leaving only the dust-knight behind, but the knights who traveled here with them are still here, as well as Yvrenne.

Yvrenne was hurt, in the battle with the darkspawn. Her human, too.

And now Yvrenne smells a little like darkspawn blood along with obsidian and darkness.

But she is becoming stronger with each sunrise, and sometimes at night he goes to lie next to her, and sometimes he goes to see the dust-knight, who has started saving bits of his dinner for Lorn. Lorn approves, and he approves of the way that the dust-knight smells now, smoke and icy lyrium dust and not even a trace of the metallic anger that was always a part of him before.

Then the herb-woman brings in another woman who smells even more strongly like loam, and Lorn's human smells happy but there's water coming from her eyes, and Lorn does not quite understand what is happening. The singer tells him that the loam-woman knew his human long ago, when his human was still a pup.

And then everyone is gone, and it's just Lorn and his human, and he shoves his head under her chin and whuffs. She scratches his chest, and he groans appreciatively. "Tomorrow I talk to the bann," she tells him. "And then we're going to Denerim for a little while. Do you remember Denerim?"

Denerim he remembers, there was that place with the _excellent_ cakes and the perfumed ladies who fed so very _many_ to him while Lorn's human busied herself in a room down the hall.

His human laughs. "You _would_ remember the Pearl, Lorn. So we'll go there, and when summer is over we'll return to the Tower."

And she is lightning and dust and she is _his_, and there is nothing in the world finer.

*****

_(Author's note: yes, there is one more chapter in this story. I promise.)_


	8. He Who Made the Lamb

**Eight: He Who Made the Lamb**

**

* * *

**

_When the stars threw down their spears,  
And watered heaven with their tears,  
Did He smile his work to see?  
Did He who made the Lamb, make thee?_

_--William Blake, "The Tyger"_

_

* * *

  
_

_Alistair:_

"Bann Alfstana. Or—it is Arlessa Alfstana now, yes?" Kathil inclined her head towards the noblewoman.

With both of them in the same room, it was obvious that Alfstana and Kathil were sisters. Their coloring was wildly different—Kathil pale, with hair so blonde it was nearly white, and Alfstana with golden skin and mahogany hair. Alfstana was tall, Kathil…not so much.

But the mouths and the jaws were the same, and though their dark eyes were different shapes the intensity of their gazes was neatly matched. "King Alistair has restored Seahold's former title, yes. Since it was a _technicality_ that removed it in the first place." Alfastana's tone only held a _little_ frost. It was an improvement.

"Try 'offending King Maric' in place of _technicality_," he said. "Less paperwork, more figuring out what he'd done to get my father's panties in a bunch." Alfastana paled, and Kathil bit her lip, trying not to laugh. "We finally did get it sorted, and this meeting's the last thing that has to be done to make it official. So." He took a breath. "Arlessa Alfstana Nasmyth of Waking Sea, I present to you your sister, Second Enchanter Kathil Amell of the Circle of Magi, Grey Warden. Try to get along, all right?"

"Amell was my father's first wife's name," Alfstana said. She studied Kathil's face briefly. "She was from the far south. You look much like the painting that he kept of her."

"Can you tell me what happened to her?" Kathil asked.

"It was an accident." Alfstana looked out the window. "We'd had a bad winter, and Amell ran up and down the stairs at quite the pace, Father always said. There was ice on the outside steps leading to the courtyard. She came running down them, slipped, and fell. She broke her neck in front of him—and you, because he was holding you at the time. You were two." She shook her head slowly. "Then two years later, you showed signs of the mage taint. He was about to marry my mother, and he…told everyone you had been carried off by a bad bout of the winter fever. He told me the truth only just before he died."

Kathil was watching her sister carefully, and he could almost see her thinking. "I'm not after public acknowledgment, Alfstana," she said, and her voice was quiet. "I just wanted to know what happened to my parents, our father. Whether they loved me."

Alfstana turned towards Kathil. "His heart broke when your mother died. My mother said that without her influence, he was raising you like he would have a son. You had all the toy swords and bows you could carry, and not a doll among them. He told my mother that he was going to raise you with a fierce heart and a fierce eye, and you were going to go serve Maric when you were old enough."

"That…explains much." She drew a breath. "And our father? What happened to him?"

"He died when I was seven." Alfstana crossed her arms. "Right after he and Maric quarreled, he came home ill. There was some sort of sickness in him that nobody could treat. He died two weeks later. My mother served as regent until I was of age. She lived long enough to see me married, but died soon after."

"I'm sorry, Alfstana," Kathil said. "And thank you."

"What are your plans now?" the Arlessa asked, obviously hoping that _leaving_ was among them.

"Don't worry, we won't impose on your hospitality much longer." Kathil smiled, and Alistair could see that smile was just a _little_ sharp. "We're just about ready to travel. We'll head back to Denerim, and from there I will go back to the Tower. If I'm ever in the area again, I will drop by to visit." At Alfstana's sharp look, she said, "Stranger things _have_ happened. Thank you, Alfstana." She nodded to the Arlessa, turned, and walked out. Alistair did the same and followed.

He caught up with her down the hall. "Thank you," Kathil said to him as he drew even with her. "It means a lot that you went to all that trouble for me."

Alistair shrugged. "It was going to need to get sorted sooner rather than later. Might as well do it sooner and use it to benefit my favorite mage."

She looked sidelong at him. "Am I? Still your favorite mage, that is."

And it was so _odd_, that the question was just a question, and didn't come with any swirling undercurrents or the feeling that there wasn't anything he could say without it being the wrong thing. With Cullen having taken up a watchful guard on the mage (and looking absolutely overjoyed by that), Alistair thought that he'd been supplanted rather neatly.

_Blessedly._

That, too, was an odd thought.

"You are," he told her. "And my friend. And, I will add, completely _terrifying_." He grinned at her.

She wrinkled her nose at him. "And you're kind of a big dumb lout sometimes. Not as dumb as you look, though." She hit him on the shoulder. "You're a good king, Alistair. I did all right, putting you on the throne. And it looks like you finally forgave me for it."

He stepped into an alcove with a window in it, and she followed. The window faced out to the Waking Sea, to endless waves turned to silver where sunlight touched them. "I think we've finally forgiven each other, Kathil."

"Took us long enough." She looked out the window, and the reflected light of the sea played over her face, turning the scar to silver like one of the waves. "Strange. This, I almost remember." She turned away from the window, and she was grinning at him, and it was as if the extra twist at the corner of her mouth from the scar had always been there, had always been a part of her. "Come on. If we're going to leave tomorrow morning, we both need to pack, and I think Lorn's been stealing your socks. Again."

They were walking toward the stairs, and both of them were laughing.

*****

_Cullen:_

At first, he didn't know quite how to act.

It took two weeks for them to be ready to get back on the road. Kathil was spending most of her time lying in bed healing, and even when she was up and around she wasn't going to be casting much magic. He made himself useful with Alistair's guards, slipped Lorn bits of meat and cookie halves, and tried to get used to the idea that he was alive and that there was an undeniable _rightness_ about all of this.

There were still a lot of things that were awkward, moments of strained silence, places where his edges and Kathil's rubbed against each other. In fact, the mage seemed to be altogether made of sharp edges and prickly things. It was going to take some time for both of them to get used to this, it seemed.

Then they were on the road, and the second night Kathil came over to him where he sat, trying to do a makeshift repair on one of his armor straps. She was carrying a small flask and two cups. "I picked this up at the hold," she said as she sat down on the log next to him. "I thought I'd share it with you."

He raised an eyebrow. "Aren't mages not supposed to drink?"

"Believe it or not, it's not alcoholic. It's something…different. It's imported from the far north. The Orlesians call it _joie_." She poured a little into both cups. "Come on, try it with me. Please?"

And when he did, the liquid was thick and sweet and sharp like honey, and it made warmth spread from his belly out to his limbs. Next to him, Kathil made an odd sound. "Well. That wasn't _precisely_ as advertised. But good anyway." She corked the bottle. "What do you think?"

Then they were _talking_, about everything, about what had happened during the war and all the time they had missed in each other's lives when the Tower had come between them. And they kept talking, and it was like being fourteen again except for the fact that they didn't have to meet in secret. They'd ride next to each other sometimes during the day, and at night around the campfire they would _all_ talk, and Cullen finally figured out how to treat the King like he was a real person, which he undeniably was.

Sometimes altogether too much like a real person, really.

Cullen watched Kathil and Zevran, how their hands would meet sometimes and their fingers entangle with each other, how they never _said_ anything like _I love you_ but it was there in every glance, the way the elf would appear silently at Kathil's shoulder, the way the mage would raise her head when she heard Zevran speak. Heard them retire together into their tent at night, as well. They tried to be quiet—at least, Cullen imagined that they did.

They still kept him awake at night sometimes.

On one of these nights, he gave up on sleep and crawled out of his tent, heading towards the dying fire. To his surprise, Alistair was already there. He had a knife, and was working on carving something out of a piece of wood. "You couldn't sleep either?" he asked Cullen.

Cullen shook his head. "A bit loud." He glanced at the tent that Kathil and Zevran shared. Lorn was lying across the entrance, one ear cocked, the rest of him asleep.

Alistair chuckled. "It is, at that." He held the misshapen thing in his hands up to the firelight and frowned. "Just free the form trapped in the wood, Leliana says. She makes this look so _easy_. I think what was trapped in this piece of wood is a…hm. What do you think this is?"

He looked at the carving Alistair held out to him. "A rabbit?"

"I was going for a griffon, but I'll take rabbit. It does look a little bit like a rabbit, doesn't it?"

"A little." Cullen hesitated. "Do you mind if I ask a question?"

"Maybe if I trim down the wings some…ask away."

"Does…_that_…bother you?" He motioned vaguely at the source of the noise, which had mostly fallen into silence.

"A bit, but not for the reason you think." Alistair applied knife to wood again. "It makes me miss Rima. My wife," he added when Cullen looked quizzical. "The Princess Consort. It's been six weeks since I've seen her, or Duncan. As for Kathil..." He lowered his hands and stared into the embers of the fire. "You get to a place where you stop torturing yourself over the past. And sometimes, you even get to forgive yourself."

Cullen thought he understood.

*****

_Leliana:_

"Are you ever going to tell me about Marjolaine?"

They had sent the boys (as Kathil insisted on calling them) off to hunt for an hour or two, after having stopped early to camp. Zevran had objected, but Kathil had spoken a few quiet words to him, and he'd looked amused and had gone willingly. Lorn had gone with them, of course. They had taken most of the guards with them, and those few left were keeping their distance from the two women. Leliana was tuning her rebec, the small viol-like instrument that was one of the few she carried with her. The mage had come to sit at her feet, for all the world like a child asking for a story.

Only _this_ story was no child's tale. Leliana put the rebec aside. "This is why you have sent everyone away, no?"

"It's been my first chance to really _talk _to you since Seahold." Kathil tipped her face upward, half-closing her eyes. "Besides, Cullen's presence was rather forced on you. I figured, if you didn't want him to know whatever it is, that it would be better if he wasn't here."

"It isn't that I do not want him to hear, dearest. It is just that there would be so very many _questions_ from him. Few of which he would come out and ask."

"He's a Templar by training. He's used to just watching and drawing his own conclusions." The mage smiled and set her head against Leliana's knee. "Really, Lei, please. Tell me?"

She laughed and ran her hand through Kathil's hair, ruffling it. "Only because you ask so very prettily. So I went back to Orlais, and spent a year tracking Marjolaine. I came very close a few times, but always missed her by about _this_ much. It was very frustrating. So I stopped pursuing her. Instead, I worked my way into the Orlesian court, and some day I will tell you a few of _those_ stories, but not today. As I thought she might, Marjolaine came looking for me. I led her a merry chase, first here, then there. It _was_ a lovely little romp, for old times' sake. But eventually, it came to an end. There was, you see, a party arranged. A _very_ exclusive party. The sort of party where one wears a mask and little else."

Kathil blinked up at her. "They _have_ those in Orlais?"

"Only in certain circles, dearest." She combed her hand through Kathil's hair again. "They are difficult to get invitations to."

"Mmm. You have exactly a thousand years to stop doing that. And pity, otherwise I was going to suggest that we visit Orlais at our _earliest_ opportunity."

Leiliana chuckled. "And this from the magelet who was scandalized when I suggested that her fellow Grey Warden might have designs upon her? Zevran is a _terrible_ influence on you. I should take you from him and teach him a lesson."

"Tch. You know, that offer of mine is still open. Anyway, so. Naked party."

"Ah, yes, the party. Well, Marjolaine knew I was going to be there. I knew Marjolaine was going to be there. She couldn't _not_ be there, because there were…certain people going to be there who, should I say the wrong thing to them, had the potential to make her life difficult."

Kathil shifted so that her chin was on Leliana's knee. "I understand. I think, at least."

She smiled. "I am simplifying things a bit. But we were both there, there was a bit of wine involved, and the two of us ended up alone, in a corner of the garden. She claimed to have missed me. Then, when I kissed her, she tried to strangle me. I was rather expecting that. What _she_ did not suspect was that the glass of wine she had been handed earlier by a fetching serving boy was poisoned. It was a closer call than I would have liked, but I survived, and that night I had a dream."

The mage's mouth pressed closed in a firm line. "One of _those_ dreams?"

"I think so. I had a dream of a knight made of dust. And a mouse." Leliana wrinkled her nose. "Really, it made _much_ less sense than the vision that guided me to you originally. But I woke with the feeling that it was time I came back to Ferelden, and I decided to trust that feeling. And here I am."

"And glad we are. Thank you, Leliana. For telling me, for coming to find me, for everything." She wriggled around and put an arm across Leliana's lap. "I think Denerim is going to be interesting."

"A question, dearest." The sun was warm on her, and Kathil's body was relaxed where it leaned against her. This was as good a time as any to ask. "What are you planning to do with Cullen?"

A shiver of tension passed through the mage's shoulders. "Ah. Cullen. Yes." Her expression went distant. "Leliana…I don't think I've ever claimed to be a good person. A _good_ person wouldn't have convinced Alistair to sleep with Morrigan just because she was afraid to sacrifice herself like she was supposed to. And a _good_ person would have told the Grey Wardens about it, if she did, just so they could be prepared for the _next_ catastrophe that tries to destroy the world. A good person wouldn't have done many of the things I've done—or that I'm going to do. I'm not even a very good Grey Warden. Or a good Circle mage, if it comes down to it. I am _selfish._"

Leliana's hand slipped down to Kathil's neck, tracing a line under her hair. "It reminds me of a little story. A rabbit went to the Maker and asked, 'Why did you make wolves? Our lives would be so much easier if there were no wolves. We could live and die in peace and quiet, not in fear.' And the Maker replied, 'I made wolves so you would never have to know tigers.'"

"And I'm a wolf?" Kathil asked.

"Ah, the story doesn't quite end there. So the rabbit asked, 'Then why did you make tigers?' Rabbits ask those sorts of questions. And the Maker said, 'I made tigers because there must be things that even wolves fear.' I think it is difficult, to be made something that wolves fear. And you have not answered my question."

"No. I haven't." It was strange, how this woman could stand in front of an assembly and speak without hesitation…but get her alone and she was so very different. "A good person would let him do what he was sworn to do and no more, Lei. Avoid confusing his duty and any other feelings he might have. But I'm not really a very good person. "

"And that is enough answer for me," she said quietly. She bent forward and laid a soft kiss on the mage's brow, a small ache in her chest, easily ignored. "We will stop at the Chantry in Woodson, won't we? That's the last one in Waking Sea, and the next one is in Highever."

Kathil turned her gaze upward once more, and there was a twist to her mouth that Leliana recognized. "I think we will. Do you know where in a chantry they keep records of those who are brought to them? And do you feel like helping me get my hands on some?"

And _this_ was yet another reason she had come back to Ferelden. The surprises. "There should be a locked cabinet in the revered mother's office. And I could, but why?"

"Just a feeling that there's something I need to see in there. " Leliana rapped her friend's skull gently with the tips of her fingers. "Oh, fine. That's the chantry Cullen grew up in. I want to see what sort of records they might have on him. And I don't want to let him know I'm looking. It might be nothing."

She smiled. "I looked through the revered mother's cabinet in Lothering a time or three. They write down whatever they know about their foundlings, but it's usually not much. I'm sure we could find our way into the office, and if the cabinet just _happens_ to be unlocked, we could take a look."

Kathil always had the loveliest smile when she'd just gotten her way.

*****

_Cullen:_

It was ten days from Seahold to Highever, including the half of a day they spent in Woodson. It was strange, to be in Woodson—_there_ was the wall he'd helped rebuild, over _there_ was the old apple tree that he would always sit in when he wanted to feel a little closer to the sky. It was home, but not quite home, and the revered mother looked at him so oddly. They stayed for a service and to resupply (Kathil and Leiliana slipping off to the tailor's shop, telling him _no, you can't come with us, Cullen_) and moved on in the morning.

Then they reached Highever. Though they'd been traveling quickly, it would have been deadly rude of Alistair to pass by Highever twice without making a royal visit of it. "I think Fergus will let me go after a week," Alistair told them. "And he _does_ have a point—it's a chance for the two of us to talk without being overheard by the same crowd of listeners that are in the palace. At least the source of the rumors will be different this time."

And there were stacks and stacks of letters for Alistair to read, and high dinners thrown in his honor, and after only a few days Alistair was looking like he was just about dying to get back on the road. The rest of them were largely left to their own devices, except for those dinners (_come and look ceremonial with me?_ Alistair had asked). Kathil discovered that Highever's well-stocked library had been partially spared from Rendon Howe's sack of the castle four years ago, so Cullen spent a lot of time in the library with her. He had thought he would just stand and look watchful, but the mage recruited him to help her make notes on the books.

"You have nice writing," she said, picking up a page of notes he'd just finished. "Somehow, I didn't expect that."

"Thank Sister Gisela for that one." He blew on a line and returned his pen to the inkwell's stand. "She wanted me to be a copyist. I didn't really like the idea, but practicing writing was a lot more pleasant than mucking out the pigsty and cleaning chicken coops, which was my other option."

They were alone in the library; the archivist was in her study with the door firmly closed and the man who taught history had taken his students away for a tour of the Cousland family graveyard. Afternoon light slipped in through the narrow windows set high in the walls. They had been looking at a set of six books on Kordillius Drakon, comparing details on his first set of campaigns to spread the Chant of Light through Thedas. So far, all of the histories disagreed on nearly every detail—but they disagreed in consistent directions, at least. "This was before you were chosen for Templar training, obviously," she said.

"Only just. The Sister was _very_ disappointed, let me tell you." He smiled a little and picked up his pen again, the feather shaft light in his fingers. "She actually shook her finger at the Commander and scolded him for taking away her best apprentice."

"I would have given a lot to see that." Kathil turned the page of the book in front of her. "Maker's Breath, you'd think they could at least attempt to be consistent on the dates _within_ the text. Didn't this one say the third campaign to the Free Marches started in the spring of 2 Divine?"

Cullen checked the note he'd just made, then peered at the line she was pointing to. "It did. But that says the army reached the Free Marches in 4 Divine, it doesn't say when it started. Does it mean it took them two years to get to the Free Marches from Orlais?"

"It has to be a copying error." She glanced over at him. "Did they release you from your Templar vows when they sent you to the Grey Wardens, Cullen?"

His hand jerked slightly, and a drop of ink fell from the pen to splash on the page. "_Damnation_. Er." He reached for the little bottle of sand rather over-quickly, nearly knocking it over in his haste to get the sand applied to the drop. "They did, actually. There was even a formal ceremony. Why?"

Kathil had returned her attention to the page, bowing her head so her hair fell to obscure her expression from him. "No reason."

He didn't trust that tone of voice. "You're planning something, Kathil."

She kept looking at the page, but her finger under the line of text wasn't moving. "Perhaps. Ah, here we are. Evidently there was some sort of political difficulty and the march didn't actually get underway until a year after Emperor Drakon ordered it."

Just about then, Lorn came bounding in, Zevran on his heels, and it was time to get ready for yet another fancy dinner. Cullen came back to his room late that night; Kathil had pleaded a headache and retired early, but the rest of them had stayed up to talk with the teyrn. Cullen left Alistair and Zevran with Fergus Cousland, since Zevran had brought out his dice. Cullen knew from experience that either the elf's dice were loaded or he had the most preposterous luck the Maker had _ever_ blessed anyone with.

_Probably both,_ he thought.

But when he got into his room, there was a mage sitting cross-legged on his bed, reading.

Cullen glanced around, uneasy. Surely there was an audience lying in wait, waiting to burst out at him? Kathil looked up and closed her book. "Ah, you're back. Good."

He cleared his throat. "You, ah—what are you _doing_ in here, Kathil?"

Kathil rose from the bed and came over to him, putting a hand on his chest. He looked down at her, confused. She was so much shorter than him. He always forgot, until they were standing this close together. For some reason, he always thought of her as his own height.

"What do you _think_ I'm doing in here, Cullen? Really." She tilted her head a little, studying his face. "Though I could go, if you like."

It was getting a bit difficult to think. "But—what about Zevran?" he asked, trying hard to remember that the elf was an _assassin_ and if he took a dislike to Cullen that might be very _very_ bad.

There was a bright light in her eyes. "Zevran is going to challenge the good teyrn to a very _particular_ dice game tonight. Really, Cullen, you knew that he and I have an arrangement."

Though that arrangement hadn't ever been explained to him, at this moment he thought he might understand the terms—or maybe just the important ones, the ones that mattered right now. And there was a frame around this now, this moment with her standing so close to him, something that made it all make _sense._

Like it made sense that she was a mage, _that_ mage, and in her every heartbeat there were shadows. Like the darkness behind the bright in her eyes, the Fade always present, the scent of her alien like the lyrium dust in the little pouch that he kept hidden under his shirt. Like that in her hand on his chest were memories, another time and another place, a cage of shimmering violet magic and he was so very far from there, father than he ever imagined he might be. And he could see it on her face, knew she was remembering that, too.

A demon had once come to him, wearing her face, offering this.

They were very still, in that moment.

Something flickered across her face, and she shifted her weight away from him. With only the barest volition, he reached for her, pulled her tight in a hug. He could feel her trembling—or was that him? "Not tonight," he said against her hair.

Not a _no_ for always. A _no_ for right now, because they were still too new to this, and both of them were things made of blades and edges.

Her arms came up around him, a warm pair of hands on his back, and they held each other until they stopped shaking. Then he said something, and she laughed, and everything was back to normal except that everything had once again been rearranged in this tangle between them.

She did spend the night in his room, but in conversation, both of them curled on his bed fully clothed. Sometime in the small hours of the morning, when the lamp on the table was guttering, she asked a question and he gave a stammering, slightly shamefaced answer, because this was _her_ asking and—well, nobody had ever _asked_ before.

"Interesting," was all she said, and there was a small, satisfied smile on her face. She kissed his forehead and then the end of his nose. "I should get back to my own room. I'll see you in the morning, Cullen."

Then she was up, and a moment later she was gone.

He thought he would never sleep, but he did, and his dreams were bright, fragile, fluttering things.

*****

_(three weeks later)_

_Kathil:_

"He is a most…unexpected man, your Templar."

They could have made it to Denerim tonight, had they decided to push, but instead they had camped early tonight by common, silent consensus. Even Alistair, who could well have gone ahead, had decided to linger with them.

When they reached Denerim, this would be over, this shadow of what had once been. Another ending. Another beginning.

So she had taken the opportunity to steal away from camp with Zevran. Lorn kept watch nearby, and the two of them were sitting in the shade of a willow. Its wind-stirred branches dipped and dragged into the river.

Strange, how _small_ all the trees seemed, after Waking Sea.

"He is, isn't he?" she said. Zevran's arm was draped over her shoulders, and both of them were watching the rippling surface of the water as it whispered by them. "In many ways."

Zevran looked over at her, and gave her that half-smile that never failed to make her heart beat just a shade faster. "You have this habit, my Grey Warden, of collecting oaths. Would that I had known that when we met."

"Would you have done anything else, had you known?" The question was out of her mouth before she realized she was going to ask it.

He made a _hmm_ that she could feel where she leaned against him, where his body heat stole into her and warmed her. "I think not."

The moment felt delicately balanced, everything between them silent and watchful. Kathil shifted so her legs were over his lap, her chin on his shoulder and her mouth by his ear. His arms came up and around her, holding her, neither clutching nor setting her free. She closed her eyes. "Neither would I. I would change nothing, Zevran."

Tomorrow would be Denerim, and all the pomp and noise that place enclosed, and all the gazes on them. And there were worries beyond that, questions of politics and of magic, of nightmares and Wynne, of what she now knew about where Cullen had come from and what he would say when she told him, of the Tower and the Chantry and how both of them were going to react when she showed up to the Tower after half a year's absence with both Zevran and Cullen in tow.

And always, always, the question of when the payment for her and Alistair's lives was going to come due.

Right now, there was Zevran and the way his skin smelled and the way his body felt against hers. There was Lorn a little way away, guarding. Cullen back at camp, oathbound, ready to defend her from herself if the need came. Leliana, always dear, their friendship slipping and sliding over all _sorts_ of borders that they never spoke of. Alistair, who in the last few weeks had gone from a torn place in her soul to a scarred place, a friendship reclaimed from a pair of mended hearts.

Right now, poised in the place between what had been and what would be, she felt herself—

_Blessed._

_

* * *

  
_

_do you know they call it arson  
setting fires without permission  
in my heart for sure and maybe elsewhere too  
though your lack of inhibition  
captures my imagination  
I end up a wiser person thanks to you_

_then there is your flair for murder  
there's a dagger in the border  
of your cloak and I suspect a captain's gun  
as you put to death suspicions  
kindly kill my fears as well  
exorcise and slay the demons one by one_

_though I'm usually pacifistic  
you are mercifully sadistic  
and I didn't know that murder could be good  
but the roses came crimson  
springing from the prison  
of the floorboards where there once were stains of blood_

_--Over the Rhine, "Within Without"_

**The End**

**

* * *

  
**

_Author's note: _

_Thank you, everyone, for sticking with me through this one. Reviews and comments are always loved! There will likely be one more story in this series, but I have another project I need to get back to writing, so it might be a bit. And props to those sharp-eyed folks who spot the reference to a certian book series in this chapter.  
_

_To answer a couple of questions that have come up along the way: yes, I have taken some serious liberties with the source material. (I'm afraid I can never help myself…) In this version of post-game, because Alistair is King and the PC took off for parts unknown for a few years, the Orlesian Grey Wardens have been brought in to re-establish the Grey Wardens in Ferelden. It was supposed to be temporary, but they're beginning to overstay their welcome at this point, something the next story will address. _

_And usually the Grey Wardens don't care about maleficars, but between the personal prejudices of the Warden-General, the fact that they really thought that the world would be safer if Kathil were dead, and the fact that it's really easy in Thedas to explain away the deaths of mages by saying they used magic that wasn't supposed to exist, the maleficar route was the most expedient one to take. _

_Anyway, thank you all for reading and your kind comments!_

_The next story in this series is called "Unstrung Harmonies", and it takes place during a summer spent in Denerim, where there are all kinds of surprises in store. That story can be found on my profile.  
_


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